LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 






UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



INGERSOLLANDTHE DEIST 



BY 



A NATIVE "TAR »EEL" 



VJ»**p . 




A 






'] 



1889 

FOR SALE BY 

DOANE HERRING 

Wilson, N. C. 



*< 



Copyright, 1889, 
By N. B. HERRING. 



Press of J. J. Little & Co., 
Astor Place, New York. 



TO 
THAT VILIFIED AND LITTLE UNDERSTOOD CLASS, 

THE SKEPTICS; 

AND TO THE HONEST AND TRUTH-LOVING 

TEACHERS OF RELIGION, 

"PURE AND UNDEFILED BEFORE GOD, m 

THIS LITTLE 

BROCHURE 

IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED 
BY THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE 



In a recent sermon the Minister said: "The 
reason assaults upon the Christian religion by Mr. 
Robert Ingersoll have attracted wide attention is 
more on account of the able Christian scholars to 
whom he professes to reply than to anything new 
in his attack." 

Mr. Ingersoll says : " In the discussion of these 
questions I have nothing to do with the reputation 
of my opponent. His character throw r s no light 
on the subject, and is to me a matter of perfect 
indifference. ,, 

If the Minister is right, I fear that I shall have 
to take my labor for my pains ; but if Mr. Ingersoll 
meant what he said in his reply to Mr. Black, he 
will not refuse to acknowledge my arguments 
because I am unknown. 

To deny a fact, shows ignorance. To accept an 
error because it is plausible, shows a want of in- 
vestigation or a reprehensible credulity. Instead 
of simply telling him that his statements are false, 
I have endeavored to show to him and to the 
average mind where and how they are false. 

Instead of calling him " blasphemous " and 



6 PREFACE. 

"scurrilous," I have attempted to show, by his 
own acknowledged standard (reason), that Mr. 
Black was not altogether wrong when he said, 
" The author " (Colonel Ingersoll) " holds himself 
to be the ultimate judge of all good and evil ; 
what he approves is right, and what he dislikes is 
certainly wrong." 

I have no quarrel with infidelity, neither am I 
at cross-purposes with Christianity. 

Error, wherever found, be it in temple or shrine, 
high place or low, in philosophy or law, in 
teacher or taught, in preacher or infidel — error is 
my enemy, and I am the enemy of error. 

To combat your enemy successfully, your first 
duty is to recognize him, and your next is to use 
efficient weapons against him. The weapons 
against error are neither blows nor curses, persua- 
sions nor prayers. 

With truth to start with, and logic to guide you, 
the pitfalls of error can never entrap you ; but 
you must be sure of your guide as well as your 
companion. 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE OLD MAN IN THE CAR. 

An old man sat in one of the gorgeous palace- 
cars of a great Western railway while the train 
sped along with such an easy gliding motion as 
not to disturb the old man in his reading. 

He was the only passenger in the car, and, his 
journey being a long and tedious one, he had pro- 
vided against the ennui and monotony of travel 
by supplying himself with some of the current 
literature of the day. 

He was sociable in his nature and habits, and 
preferred the society of his fellow-man to any 
other enjoyment, but when alone and comfortable 
he never failed to have at hand some book or peri- 
odical from which he received instruction, or 
whiled away the time between his more active 
engagements. 

His hair was short cropped and white with age. 
His face was wrinkled and his back bowed, but his 



8 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

eye was bright and his broad forehead indicated 
thought. His dress was plain but neat, and his 
spectacles pushed up on his forehead showed that 
he did not need them in reading. He had been 
near-sighted in youth, and wore glasses mainly to 
see at a distance. Age had flattened his eyeballs, 
and the focus of light had come in the easy range 
of ordinary men in their prime. He wore glasses 
now more from habit than from any benefit he 
derived from them. He had been a student from 
early youth, and the acquisition of knowledge had 
been the one absorbing passion of his life. He had 
had the benefit of the finest educational facilities 
of his day, and had graduated with first honors at 
a famous university of the South. He began at 
an early day to critically examine his own knowl- 
edge, and, finding much of it faulty, he inquired 
into the methods of teaching, and to his surprise 
and chagrin he found them crude, inefficient, and 
ill adapted to the requirements of the age. 

His Alma Mater, which at one time he wor- 
shiped as a tutelary goddess, became in later 
years a fetich of priggism where the smatterer 
bowed and the pedant strove for the honors of a 
Machiavelian sophistry. 

In every department of human learning which 
he investigated, he found the same superficiality, 
the same gloss and tinsel. The science and art of 
agriculture were in the most primitive condition, 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 9 

and the laws which governed the growth of plants 
understood by few. Main strength and awkward- 
ness were considered the most efficient means at 
the command of the farmer, while crop failures 
were attributed to evil conjunction of the planets. 
Removing obstructions such as stones and stumps, 
subsoiling and under-draining, and the intelligent 
application of fertilizers were regarded as evi- 
dences of lunacy, and to be called a " book farmer " 
was equivalent in these days to being called a 
" crank." 

The physician's greatest ambition was to " smell 
like a doctor," and his armamentarium consisted 
in murdered technicalities of which he knew no 
more than his deluded patrons. 

" Collozion " of the liver was a diagnosis often 
pronounced at the bed-side, and cynanche tra- 
chealis or cerebro-spinal meningitis, uttered in the 
style of " Sir Oracle," gave him the name of being 
a very knowing doctor. 

The lawyer would speak knowingly of the Lex 
talionis, while the preacher quoted Scripture and 
twisted it to suit his own church and creed. 

Some of the best mechanics had spent much of 
their time in working at perpetual motion, and 
the alchemist's dream still haunted the chemist, 
while the philosopher's stone engrossed the atten- 
tion of nearly every class above the common 
laborer. But, of all men, the teacher was found 



IO INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

most sadly wanting in useful information ; and so 
deeply grounded was his prejudice, and so bent 
upon following the ruts of his predecessors, that 
the caustic lines of Boileau became a fitting 
animadversion upon the farcical purism of the 
average school-master : 

" Brim full of learning, see the pedant stride ! 
Bristling with horrid Greek, and puffed with pride, 
A thousand authors he in vain has read, 
And with their maxims stuffed his empty head ; 
And thinks that without Aristotle's rule 
Reason is blind, and common sense a fool." 



CHAPTER II. 

THE SCHOOL-MASTER, 

To be a school-teacher in the South prior to the 
war, and more especially about the date 1840, was 
looked upon as an admission on the part of the 
teacher that he was good for little else. 

A few noted exceptions might be found here 
and there, where by long and persistent use of the 
rod a sort of savage respect had attached itself to 
particular individuals; but as a rule, when the 
Southern gentleman wanted a teacher, he sent to 
Massachusetts or Connecticut, as he did for his ax- 
helves, believing that no good could come out of 
this modern Nazareth save a cotton-bale, a nigger, 
or a mule. 

This fantasm of the Southern mind had built a 
temple of wisdom in New England, and, as true 
knowledge could be obtained from no other 
source, the Yankee school-master came period- 
ically to keep the free and entered schools of the 
South. 

Ichabod Crane, the hero of " Sleepy Hollow/' is 
a type of the New England gaberlunzies who 
migrated annually to North Carolina to instruct 



12 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

the young " tar heel " in the mysteries of foreign 
slang. 

" I kotch it," I have heard one say as he played 
ball with the children when school was out. 

They brought with them an abundance of Le- 
thean waters, of which the tow-headed urchins 
drank copious draughts ; and hence " your Epi- 
menides, your somnolent Peter Klaus, since named 
Rip Van Winkle." 

Notwithstanding the unsavory atmosphere in 
which the native teacher was compelled to live, 
this old gentleman decided in early manhood to 
devote his life-work to the instruction of others. 
With an honesty unknown to the other profes- 
sions he pursued the line of truth as far as he 
could trace it, without thanks and with little 
reward. He passed through the usual stages of 
hopeful optimism, despairing pessimism, indiffer- 
ent submission, and finally in his old age entered 
the Elysian fields of true philosophy. At middle 
age he had learned a lesson which few ever learn, 
that is, the limit of his own capacity. After that 
he never attempted impossibilities. He saw that 
the possible was so much neglected that life was 
too short to waste time after the impossible. He 
had learned that the human mind could never 
attain to the limits of all knowledge, and for 
years he had only endeavored to instill into the 
minds of his pupils some of the fundamental 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 13 

principles. He made it a rule of his profession 
to correct error rather than to teach truth, believ- 
ing that negative evidence in this particular — that 
is, a statement of what a thing is not — is more 
valuable than dogmatic assertion. The modern 
method of pushing at school, of going through 
and over books, of cramming, learning rules by 
heart, and reciting by rote, he repudiated as a 
waste of time and an injury to the understanding. 

As a man, he was somewhat on the order of 
Rousseau's friend De Altuna. 

" The idea of vengeance could no more enter his 
head than the desire of it could proceed from his 
heart. His mind was too great to be vindictive, 
and I have frequently heard him say, with the 
greatest coolness, that no mortal could offend 
him. He was the only man I ever saw whose 
principles were not intolerant. It was not of the 
least consequence to him whether his friend was 
a Jew r , a Protestant, a Turk, a bigot, or an atheist, 
provided he was an honest man." 

Heteroclite, bizarre, sui generis, or some such 
appellative, appeared to befit him both as a 
teacher and a citizen, and accordingly he was 
known in his community as an oddity. 

His pupils gave him the name of Rip Van 
Winkle, partly in honor of his native State, but 
mainly on account of his ancient methods and his 
tameless desire to attend to their business rather 



14 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST, 

than his own. He claimed, however, that their 
business was his, and in attending to them he only- 
exemplified his consistent precept of " mind your 
own business." 

The little boys looked upon this as a paradox, 
but the more mature minds could see the consist- 
ency, as the true philosopher can see the con- 
sistency of cause and effect linked with necessity. 






CHAPTER III. 

RIP VAN WINKLE. 

Van Winkle, Rip Van Winkle, or Old Rip, as 
we shall hereafter indiscriminately call him, taught 
by precept and example, and while he had for years 
endeavored to instill into the minds of his pupils 
the fundamental principles of all knowledge, he 
had watched the teachings of others, not only in 
the school-room, but from the pulpit, the rostrum, 
and the secular press. 

Speculative philosophy had for many years 
engaged his leisure moments, and he had studied 
with a critical eye the various theories of philos- 
opher, minister, and statesman. He had found 
from experience and observation that truth lay 
buried in the inner kernel of all things, and could 
only be found by dissection and analysis, that 
the pericarps or husks of philosophy alone were 
seen by the multitude, and that to get the pure 
gold the mine must be sapped to the bottom. 

He analyzed the human mind, and divided it 
into compartments embracing truth and error. 
He compared the psychical states of men and 
brutes, and found them so closely allied as to bear 



1 6 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

the semblance of kinship, yet so far apart that no 
theory of descent has been able to bridge the gap. 

The marvelous intellect of Darwin, the keen 
logic of Spencer, the profound thought of Helm- 
holtz, and the painstaking studies of Haeckel, 
have never yet discovered the " missing link" in 
the chain of cause and effect which shall attempt 
to bind man to a common origin with the brute. 

Evolution in its broad sense he admitted, as 
every true philosopher is compelled to admit ; but 
the theory of man's descent he found to be based 
upon pure assumption, as all theories concerning 
God, the universe, and the devil are based upon 
assumed postulates. In his philosophy he as- 
sumed nothing, but, taking facts as they are pre- 
sented to the minds of all thinkers, he reasoned 
out a philosophy of his own, a creed, as it were, in 
which he could find no fact in the universe run- 
ning counter to his theories. 

He made a circle around every living creature, 
and called it the " circle of the finite." Beyond 
this circle lay the infinite, and into this infinity he 
found that man was ever prying, ever trying to 
project himself. 

The lower animals, so far as he could see, had 
their whole existence here. Their distinctive fac- 
ulty, as well as the common faculties of man and 
brute, remained satisfied in this circumscribed 
area, never pushing the brute to a hope beyond, 



1NGERS0LL AND THE DEIST. 1 7 

nor dragging him with a fear of the far-off and 
unsettled future. Man alone he found delving 
into the mysteries of the infinite, yet never satis- 
fied because of his fears and doubts. He sought 
for a reason why man should trouble himself for 
that which appeared to be so far beyond his 
grasp, and in settling this point he compared by 
analysis the human and brute mind, noting par- 
ticularly the distinctive characteristics of each. 
The senses, the physical appetites, and the passions 
he found common to both, with the balance in 
favor of the brute as regards development. Sight, 
hearing, and smelling, especially, he found to be 
more acute in many of the lower animals. 

The distinctive faculty called instinct — a free 
gift to the brute, as reason is a free gift to man — 
unerring as a guide, incapable of improvement, 
perfect, and of which man can have no concep- 
tion — a faculty which appears to be a substitute 
for reason, so closely allied yet so far apart from 
reason that it sets a barrier between man and 
beast which no theory of materialism can over- 
throw. 

From this faculty of instinct he found no de- 
pendencies ; therefore the brute is without hope, 
without charity, without faith. Reverence, ven- 
eration, knowledge of good and evil, civilization, 
progress, religion, belong to man alone. Instinct 
enables the honey-bee to make its comb, the horse 



1 8 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST, 

to find its way home through the mazes and in- 
tricacies of a virgin forest, the beaver to make its 
dam, and the carrier-pigeon to direct its flight ; 
but instinct never profits by experience, never 
teaches one generation how to avoid the mistakes 
of a preceding one, never educates youth nor 
protects age. Circumscribed, limited to the finite, 
bound with a Promethean chain to this stony pen, 
it has no means of extending itself beyond the cir- 
cle. Infinity is a realm of which it has no concep- 
tion, and the spirit of the beast must end with 
the physical forces which bring it into existence. 

How different with men ! " Indued with intel- 
lectual sense and souls," they stand out, reach 
out, grasp all, and long for more. 

The circle of the finite cannot contain the mind 
of man. 

Reason, with its dependencies, enables him to 
traverse the infinite, to project himself beyond the 
pale of the known into regions where truth, error, 
happiness, and misery reign supreme, where time 
and space have no beginning and no ending, where 
mutation ceases, and where reform is impossible ; 
for it is written, " He that is unjust, let him be un- 
just still ; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy 
still ; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous 
still ; and he that is holy, let him be holy still." 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE PHILOSOPHER. 

Enthroned upon the highest pinnacle of the 
infinite sits Reason, crowned with the tiara of 
Justice, clad in the purple robes of Faith, Hope, 
and Charity, having for its foot-stool Reverence, 
Veneration, Conscience, Worship, Superstition, 
and Fear. 

Upon this couch Religion was born, and at this 
altar it bends its knee. It is pure and God-like as 
it approaches the crown, low and groveling as it 
descends to the foot. Without reason the depen- 
dent faculties could not exist ; without these facul- 
ties, religion would be impossible. With reason 
alone, man w r ould be simply an intellectual ma- 
chine, wound up by the hand of Time, to run its 
course without pleasure, without pain, without 
hope or fear; stoical, never in error, never in 
doubt, doing no good, doing no harm — progressing 
for ever in the line of truth — simply to know, to 
know until he knew it all, and then v/hat ? Ask 
the Pantheist. 

To be a man then and a religionist requires a 
combination of intellect and its dependent facul- 



20 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

ties, but, astounding as the fact may be, it is 
nevertheless a fact that religion has ignored its 
fountain-head, and seeks to maintain its exist- 
ence by feeding on its inferior and dependent 
sources. 

This it is which enables infidelity to flaunt its 
florid rhetoric before the dazzled gaze of ignorance. 
This it is that shames the honest seeker after truth, 
and causes his ears to tingle, and his cheek to burn 
at the irreverent propagandism he hears in the 
pulpit. This it is which forces the philosopher 
back upon his own resources, and causes him to 
ignore the teachings of priest and infidel alike. 

As the prime object of all teaching is to influ- 
ence conduct, to give lessons through any medium 
whereby the individual may be influenced to act 
to his own detriment can never come within the 
pale of true education, and as such should not be 
encouraged. 

To get at the truth of any matter, we have but 
one unerring guide. The senses are proverbially 
delusive, human desires are but a mockery, and 
that ever-paraded monitor, conscience, sways the 
human heart to and fro upon the billows of life 
without rudder or ballast, driving one in this 
direction, another in that, approving in one what 
it condemns in another, and blinding all with 
the beautiful phantasmagoria of self-approval. 
Were it left to the senses, the world would still be 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 21 

flat, and the imagination would place it back upon 
the coil of a serpent. 

" There is a way which seemeth right unto a 
man ; but the ends thereof are the ways of death." 

Our desires are still less to be trusted. We live 
under the influence of so many artificial stimuli 
that those instincts which to the brute are unerr- 
ing guides, become in man ignes fatui, leading us 
in devious paths, and often stranding us in the 
mud. 

That divine gift which alone separates man 
from the brute, and through which all the grand 
achievements of the world have been accom- 
plished ; that which enables him to think on 
abstract subjects and profit by experience ; that 
which is the only image of God in man — reason, 
and reason alone, is the guide to truth. 

If man is ever to be judged by appearances, and 
have sentence passed upon him through the 
medium of sense, his case will remain hopeless; 
but when enlightened philosophy shall formulate 
a creed in accordance with the highest attributes 
of humanity, the veil of charity will then cover up 
the ugly places in man's nature, and fit him for the 
exercise of that love which is so much spoken of 
and so little realized. 

As well might we attempt to get at the chem- 
ical composition and therapeutic effect of a sugar- 
coated pill by looking at it, as to analyze the 



22 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

hidden springs of human nature by looking at 
man. His composition is so intricate, his make-up 
so elaborate, and his attributes so varied, that 
anatomists, physiologists, and psychologists, with 
all their studies of body, function, and soul, have 
failed to satisfy even themselves on the points of 
their most painstaking labor. 

This unsatisfactory result may be traced to two 
essential errors : one, of the manner in which the 
investigation is made ; the other, in the means 
used to make it. The mathematician in working 
out a problem starts with the premises and labors 
to the end with one instrument. Hopes, fears, 
preconceived opinions, and appearances do not 
enter into the contest. Reason alone battles with 
the difficulty, and, if the result comes out unsatis- 
factorily, he does not abandon his means, but 
reviews his work with the same and detects his 
error ; or, if there is no error, acquiesces in the 
result without quibbling for an answer that he 
thought, or expected, or had been told would be 
the proper one. So in the mechanic arts, so in 
law and medicine ; then why not in the more 
refined and subtile philosophy of metaphysics? 
Why trust and appeal to the intellect in all matters 
pertaining to material benefits, and so uncere- 
moniously thrust it aside as untrustworthy when 
it comes to study ethical and psychological law ? 
Is there nothing real in all these wordy abstrac- 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 23 

tions which harass and perplex without satisfying, 
or does the fault lie in the method of study and 
the ends to be gained ? Have we any criterion of 
truth that we should follow automatically as the 
shadow follows the substance ? This was claimed 
for a thousand years during the Dark Ages, and 
the world lay dormant. Truth was claimed to 
have a visible throne in the Church, and the his- 
tory of those times is a long history of crime. 
This criterion is now centered in the thinking 
capacity of every rational creature, and when a 
man lays aside his reason he denies God. The 
truth can be arrived at just as an eclipse of the 
sun can be arrived at, but you must work the 
problem out the same as the astronomer works 
out the eclipse. 

The intellectual world is tired and sick of 
dogmatic teaching. 

" Prove all things ; hold fast that which is 
good," and "be ready always to give an answer to 
every man that asketh you a reason of the hope 
that is in you." 



CHAPTER V. 

FAITH. 

FOR the finite to grasp the infinite would be to 
make a part equal to the whole ; yet the finite, by 
the terms of its own existence, and with the aid 
of the evidence at its command, can in a manner 
arrive at conclusions which are positive. 

Positive evidence, or the evidence of our senses, 
will compel every one to admit that time is with- 
out limit either in the past or future, that space is 
boundless in every direction. No man has experi- 
ence when there was no time, neither has he come 
to the limit of space. Evidence by denial, exclu- 
sion, or exception, twist it as you may, can never 
exclude either the one or the other, nor bring 
them within the scope of the finite. 

Synthetic reasoning, from whatever point you 
start, can only carry you to the circumference of 
the circle. 

At the boundary line of the finite, reason must 
stop, because evidence becomes inoperative. Here 
another faculty assumes control, and, having its 
impulse from positive data, can never vary from 
the direction it takes. 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 2$ 

Faith is the only means by which the finite can 
extend itself into the infinite. 

Beyond the limits of the finite it is influenced 
no more by finite things. With its impulse from 
truth, its direction is for ever in the line of truth ; 
but with its momentum from error, its progress 
tends to error ad infinitum. 

In the philosophy of Materialism faith is a con- 
demned faculty. It is regarded as the offspring 
of ignorance and superstition alone. Denial of 
facts and assumption of truths are the bane of all 
systems of philosophy. The contention is for 
what we want rather than for what we have. 

Faith being one of the dependencies of reason, 
and being influenced and modified by the other 
dependent faculties, becomes a guide or a snare, 
according to the influence exerted by one or all 
of its fellow dependents. 

Faith, the product of pure reason, is simply an 
extension of reason beyond the finite into the 
infinite. Faith, the product of the subordinate 
faculties, is only an extension of those faculties 
into the infinite. Now, as truth within the circle 
of the finite is only attainable through reason, to 
find truth in the realm of infinity, we must exer- 
cise that faith which is based upon reason alone. 
Faith, based upon the subordinate faculties, is 
always liable to be erroneous, because these facul- 
ties contradict one another, and because they form 



26 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

" in the brain, that wondrous world with one 
inhabitant, recesses dim and dark, treacherous 
sands and dangerous shores, where seeming sirens 
tempt and fade ; streams that rise in unknown 
lands from hidden springs, strange seas with ebb 
and flow of tides, resistless billows urged by storms 
of flame, profound and awful depths hidden by- 
mist of dreams, obscure and phantom realms 
where vague and fearful things are half revealed, 
jungles where passions' tigers crouch, and skies of 
cloud and blue where fancies fly with painted 
wings that dazzle and mislead ; and the poor 
sovereign of this pictured world is led by old 
desires and ancient hates, and stained by crimes 
of many vanished years, and pushed by hands 
that long ago were dust, until he feels like some 
bewildered slave that Mockery has throned and 
crowned."* 

* Ingersoll's " Reply to Gladstone." 



CHAPTER VI. 

DIALECTICS. 

" AND the poor sovereign " (Reason) " of this 
pictured world is led by old desires and ancient 
hates, and stained by crimes of many vanished 
years, and pushed by hands that long ago were 
dust, until he feels like some bewildered slave that 
Mockery has throned and crowned/' 

Rhetoric ! Beautiful, high-sounding, turgid rhet- 
oric ! Weapons of the evangelist — of the reviv- 
alist. 

Shall the philosopher imitate the priest ? Shall 
Reason abdicate her throne at the hest of a phrase- 
monger ? 

" The intellect is not always supreme. It is 
surrounded by clouds. It sometimes sits in dark- 
ness. It is often misled — sometimes in supersti- 
tious fear, it abdicates. It is not always a white 
light. The passions and prejudices are prismatic 
— they color thoughts. Desires betray the judg- 
ment and cunningly mislead the will." * 

Were these powers taken into the council that 
projected the Mont Cenis tunnel ? Are they 

* Ingersoll's " Reply to Gladstone." 



28 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

invited on shipboard in a storm at sea ? Did they 
help Lieutenant Maury to construct his naviga- 
tion charts ? Did Columbus invoke their aid 
when he set out on his voyage of discovery ? 

It is a "poor sovereign," indeed, that takes 
these fearful helpers into his cabinet of state. 
Torquemada and Bonaparte chose them for boon 
companions and bed-fellows. The mathematician 
utterly ignores them, the astronomer does not 
recognize them, and the philosopher should say to 
them, " Get thee behind me, Satan. " 

The passions are the common property of man 
and brute. What makes the man is his power to 
think on abstract subjects. This power to think 
is independent of the physical senses or the pas- 
sions. 

The senses cannot help the mind to think. The 
passions, when they intrude, always do harm. 
The mind often becomes more acute and active 
when one or more of the senses are destroyed. A 
celebrated blind teacher of anatomy in New York 
is an example. The deaf, dumb, and blind asy- 
lums prove the same thing. Bonaparte's charac- 
ter and career show what intellect will do, aided 
by all the passions. The character of Lord Bacon 
is another example. 

Does anybody suppose that Euclid cared about 
the " obscure and phantom realms where vague 
and fearful things are half revealed, jungles where 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 29 

passions' tigers crouch, and skies of cloud and blue 
where fancies fly with painted wings that dazzle 
and mislead " ? Was he misled by this unexplored 
and tangled mass of disarray ? Did fear, hope, 
despair, hatred, or love aid him in the solution of 
his celebrated forty-seventh problem ? 

To what use could the mathematician put con- 
science ? What can the surgeon do with prayer .? 
How far would any or all of the passions direct 
the engineer, the navigator, or the statesman ? 
Does not the downfall of empires show what 
irrational legislation can do for men ? 

Faith, directed by reason, brought Columbus to 
the Western Hemisphere. Faith, directed by 
conscience, caused Paul to persecute the early 
Christians. Faith, directed by reason, enabled 
Eads to channel the mouth of the Mississippi 
river. Faith, directed by worship, prayer, and 
superstition, caused Paulina to lose her virtue in 
the Temple of Isis.* Faith, directed by reason, 
makes agriculture possible ; gives impulse to com- 
merce, navigation, and education ; builds cities, 
wharves, steamboats, and railroads ; makes prog- 
ress, civilization, and contentment possible. 
Faith, directed by the passions, causes internecine 
wars, religious persecutions, and autos-da-fe. 

" The experience of many ages proves that 
men may be ready to fight to the death, and to 

* Josephus. 



30 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

persecute without pity, for a religion whose creed 
they do not understand, and whose precepts they 
habitually disobey/' * Blind faith. 

Shall a man doff his reason the moment he 
puts on the garb of religion ? Is it possible that 
God's physical laws are based upon reason, and 
his spiritual laws upon the subsidiaries to reason ? 
Is revelation a thought of God? If so, how can 
revelation be above reason ? Can the triangle 
contain more than two right angles in the mind 
of God ? Is reason the image of God in man ? 
If so, God's reason and man's reason are alike. 

Such were the philosophical conclusions of this 
modern Rip Van Winkle, this gray-headed peda- 
gogue from North Carolina, as he sat in the car 
reading the North American Review. 

* Macaulay. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SUBJECT ILLUSTRATED. 




CHAPTER VIII. 

EVIDENCE. 

Rip Van Winkle was somewhat startled by a 
long, shrill screech of the locomotive whistle, and 
a rather sudden slowing up of the train as it 
approached a station ; but, as his attention was 
deeply engrossed upon the subject he was reading, 
he hardly knew the train had stopped until another 
passenger entered the car and caused him to look 
up from his book. 

The new passenger was a portly gentleman, 
rather above the middle age, with a beaming, 
kindly, rather full countenance, and a pleasant 
greeting on his lip, as he took a seat next our old 
friend and remarked : " I am glad to find that I am 
not entirely alone in the car, as I always prefer 
company to solitude, and especially after a hearty 
breakfast/' 

Without laying down his book, Old Rip adjusted 
his glasses and returned the gratulations of his 
new acquaintance with a smile and a pleasant word, 
to let him know that his presence was welcome ; 
and with some emotion he directed the conversa- 
tion at once to his book by saying, " I have just 



32 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

read a most astounding assertion, and as the au- 
thor is a lawyer, and supposed to be well versed in 
matters of evidence, it appears all the more strange 
as coming from such a source." 

This at once opened the way for what is to 
follow in these pages ; and the new-comer, glancing 
at the book, saw it was the North American 
Review, and his eyes danced with a merry twinkle 
as he looked at the page and read, " A Reply to 
the Rev. Henry M. Field, D.D." 

" May I ask what the assertion is that appears 
to be so astounding? " 

Van Winkle opened the book and read this 
sentence : 

" In the nature of things, there can be no 
evidence of the existence of an infinite being."* 

Our new passenger was in a good humor. He 
was pleased with all the world and himself too. 
He understood the practical details of life to the 
extent of being able to provide well for self, and 
he believed in living. He was now on a lecturing 
tour, and the night before he had delivered a lec- 
ture on the " Mistakes of Moses." His receipts 
had been large and he had been cheered to the 
echo. He felt a kind of pity and contempt for 
mankind in general, but at the same time his nature 
was kindly, and he would relieve a present distress. 
He was well up with the religious controversies 

* "A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field, " page 483. 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 33 

of the day, and he took a cynical delight in mys 
tifying preachers and theologians by asking ques- 
tions, and enjoyed their chagrin when they found 
themselves hopelessly entangled in the meshes of 
their contradictory assertions. 

Controversy was his delight, but angry debate 
he abhorred. He was apparently fair, and his 
sophisms were so plausible that he was regarded 
as a complete advocate. 

He looked at the withered old man by his side, 
and asked in a compassionate sort of way, " What 
is the matter with that assertion ? " 

"What is the matter! It would be well to 
define evidence, or to decide what evidence is," 
replied Rip, " before committing one's self to such 
a sweeping assertion. " 

" Will you please to give me your idea of what 
may be termed evidence ? " 

" Evidence to my mind may be reckoned under 
three forms, — that of positive, negative, and 
rationalistic." 

" What do I understand you to mean by posi- 
tive evidence ?" 

" Positive evidence is that form of testimony 
which is alone deducible from the physical 
senses." 

" Do you mean by the physical senses, sight, 
hearing, taste, touch, and smelling ? " 

"Yes." 



34 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

"And how much value do you apply to this 
form of testimony ?" 

" Just so much as may be included in the word 

• doubtful; " 

" Would you consider the testimony doubtful 
if a witness was to say he saw an act committed ? " 

" Most assuredly." 

" But suppose he should say he saw the act 
committed and heard the voice of the actor?" 

" In that case the testimony would be stronger, 
but still doubtful." 

" And suppose he was to say that he saw the 
act, heard the voice, and touched the actor ? " 

" Doubtful still." 

" Now, suppose the act to have been the steal- 
ing of oranges from a grocery store, and the grocer 
was to testify that he saw the thief, heard his 
voice, touched, smelled, and tasted the stolen fruit, 
— how v/ould you value that evidence ? " 

Rip Van Winkle closed his book, took off his 
spectacles, placed them in the case, and looking 
at his companion as he would at a pupil in mak- 
ing a demonstration, replied in these words: 

" To make a positive assertion in regard to any- 
thing or any occurrence, you must either see, 
hear, taste, smell, or touch the object of which 
your assertion is the subject. 

"The probability of error in this mode of com- 
ing to conclusions is so great that the testimony 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 35 

at all times is made doubtful. Our earliest life is 
made up of sense impressions only, and, to correct 
the defects of one another, all the senses must be 
compared before they can give just information ; 
and, notwithstanding the experience of a life- 
time, the eye will continue to deceive, subjective 
noises in the ear will distract, and the sense of 
smell is often perverted by a disagreeable sight 
or an unpleasant sound. 

" Taste and touch, also, are subject to similar 
perversions, and require the most watchful care to 
prevent error, and we never live long enough to 
get entirely rid of the delusions. 

u The clinical thermometer is a tacit admission 
on the part of every physician in the land that the 
tactile sense of the most delicate fingers can only 
approximate the truth as to temperature ; the 
mirage of the desert is a plague-spot to the weary 
traveler ; and the tricks of the juggler become a 
divine alchemy to the uninformed." 

At this speech, the stout gentleman took off 
his look of pity, and eyed the octogenarian with 
surprise. From a simple desire to while away a 
passing moment, he had become interested, and 
urged the old man to express his views on the 
other forms of evidence, which he did as follows : 

" Negative evidence is a minus quantity in 
relation to the perceptive powers — a sort of 
unofficial affirmation or assent of the mind. 



36 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

Rationalistic evidence, as you well know, is the 
deduction of pure reason from admitted premises. 
" Negative evidence may be taken in a descrip- 
tion or definition by denial, exclusion, or exception 
— a statement of what a thing is not. Like 
the positive, it becomes useful in many of the 
factitious ordinances of life, and may become 
auxiliary to pure reason in seeking an unknown 
quantity. But, in a problem where you are 
limited to the synthetical mode of reasoning, 
little evidence can be admitted save the rational- 
istic." 






CHAPTER IX. 

THE " ASSERTION " ANALYZED. 

The two travelers had become very good 
friends in this time, and the stout gentleman turn- 
ing to his companion inquired if he thought that, 
by any one or all three of the modes of evidence 
discussed in the preceding chapter, it could be 
demonstrated that Colonel Ingersoll's assertion in 
regard to the existence of an infinite being might 
be false ? 

" To demonstrate the absolute falsity of the 
assertion," replied the school-master, " and to the 
entire satisfaction of all thinking minds, might be 
a task of great difficulty, but to place the balance 
of evidence against the assertion, I not only think 
feasible, but of easy performance. " 

" And, pray, what evidence is there to place 
against the assertion ? " 

" There is a great deal of negative, much posi- 
tive, and some rationalistic evidence, which, if 
you will exercise a degree of patience, I will 
endeavor to present as briefly as possible ; " and, 
continuing, the old man said : 

" All truths move in parallel lines. They never 



38 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

cross, never clash, never run counter to one 
another. 

" The axioms of Euclid stand in perfect har- 
mony with every fact and every true theory of 
existence. 

" There is not one single cosmic atom in the 
universe which interferes with the statement that 
1 a straight line is the shortest distance between 
two points.' 

" If it can be found that one of the least fac- 
tors of existence shows violence to any theory, 
that theory in the nature of things must be false. 

" A theory to be true must be based upon 
facts admitted and self-evident, and the theory 
must be the product of synthetic evolution from 
those facts. 

" For any statement to be absolutely true, it 
must be found that no fact in the whole universe 
impinges upon that statement. 

"The assertion of Colonel Ingersoll that ' there 
can be no evidence of the existence of an infinite 
being ' is dogmatic, pedantic, and not warranted 
by the facts of existence. 

" One fact, if it be a fact, we have for a starting- 
point ; and, if it be not a fact, it must be a myth, 
and if a myth, then the whole of existence is a 
delusion, and man is cheated by himself, deluded 
by sense, by passion, and by reason. 

" In the discussion of any problem, all parties 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 39 

must be agreed upon fundamental principles. Un- 
less the starting-points are the same, no process of 
ratiocination can ever bring disputants together. 

11 All results in mathematics and astronomy are 
based upon the fact that a straight line is the 
shortest distance between two points. To deny 
this fact would make mining, engineering, railroad- 
ing, navigation, impossible. 

" Natural philosophy would build a flying island, 
and the sciences would seek for a new Laputa, and 
a world of chance would be substituted for law and 
order, if it should be held that a curved line is 
shorter than a straight one ; yet no one can prove it. 

" That two and two are equal to four is not sus- 
ceptible of demonstration, still no one denies it. 
Now, the fact from which the balance of evidence 
may be placed against the ' assertion/ is the exist- 
ence of the human mind/' 

At this point the lecturer interrupted the old 
gentleman with the exclamation, " Hold ! you are 
getting into deep water. We must have an under- 
standing. What is the mind ? Philosophy is not 
settled on this point. Is it a force or a mode of 
motion ? A phenomenon dependent upon the 
movement of molecules, or is it the result of iso- 
meric and metameric chemical changes in the 
brain ? " 

" The mind is immaterial," said the old man. 
11 The metameric and isomeric changes in chemical 



40 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

combinations deal with matter alone, and cannot 
be brought up as examples to illustrate combina- 
tions of material and immaterial phenomena. 

" Any theory as to the movement of molecules 
setting up phenomena de novo is gratuitous, and 
must be assigned to the regions of dogmatism. 

"We will not put it in a crucible and endeavor 
to reduce it to its component parts, neither will we 
call it a force or a mode of motion ; but we insist 
that it is an entity in contradistinction to a non- 
entity — something instead of nothing. 

" If you try to think of nothing, you can only do 
so by trying to associate in your mind the absence 
of existence. But, if you think of the mental state 
of one of your intimate friends, that condition of 
vacuity or non-entity is not presented to your 
mind as is the case when you try to think of 
nothing. This makes it self-evident that the mind 
does exist, and that it is something." 

The lecturer thought for a moment, and then 
said : " If the mind really be an entity, some- 
thing instead of nothing, it must be the effect of 
one or more causes." 

" That is just what we will come to after a while," 
said the old man ; " but we must establish its rela- 
tion to the body before we can proceed to investi- 
gate its causes." 






CHAPTER X. 

MIND AND BRAIN. 

Continuing the conversation, the ancient 
" tar heel " expressed the opinion that all intelli- 
gent persons were agreed that the brain is that 
particular portion of the animal body with which 
the mind is immediately connected. 

" I agree with you in this opinion," replied his 
companion ; " but in what manner it is related to 
the brain has never yet been determined." 

" Scientific investigation," said Van Winkle, "is 
of necessity pure materialism, and is compelled to 
stop at the borders of the spirit-world. In this 
problem, we have matter and spirit, or material 
and immaterial powers, so intimately related and 
associated, that science is not only unwilling but 
unable to venture a solution." 

" Would it not more properly come within the 
province of the psychologist ? " 

" No. Theology and psychology both have 
hammered at this solution ever since man began 
to think on the subject, and with a bitterness and 
rancor more suited to the Furies." 



42 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

" Is there then no explanation to phenomena 
which are under the daily observation of all 
men?" 

"An explanation that would be satisfactory to 
all minds is perhaps an impossible thing, but the 
balance of evidence may be placed here, as in 
other intricate cases, by reasoning from such facts 
as are known." 

" I can't understand," replied the stout gentle- 
man, " how it is possible for much evidence to be 
adduced from such a paucity of facts." 

" It is true the facts are not many, but, by a 
system of exclusion, evidence by denial will aid 
reason very much in getting a start." 

" Would you exclude all the present theories on 
the subject ?" 

" I would first analyze those theories and see if 
they are founded on facts." 

" The theologic idea seems to be that the mind 
exists independently of the brain, and only uses 
the brain as an implement or tool." 

" That is about their position," observed the old 
man, " and some pseudo-materialists maintain the 
same views, and among the most noted was the 
late Dr. John W. Draper. 

" He attempts to argue from the construction of 
the brain and nervous mechanism the necessity 
for an independent vital principle or soul, and 
says : * Thus it may be proved that those actions 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 43 

which we term intellectual do not spring from 
mere matter alone, nor are they functions of mere 
material combinations ; for, though it is indisputa- 
bly true that the mind seems to grow with the 
bodily structure, and declines with it, exhibiting 
the full perfection of its powers at the period of 
bodily maturity, it may be demonstrated that all 
this arises from the increase, perfection, and dimi- 
nution of the instrument through which it is work- 
ing. An accomplished artisan cannot display his 
powers through an imperfect tool, nor, if the tool 
should be broken or become useless through im- 
pairment, is it any proof that the artisan has 
ceased to exist ; and so, though we admit that 
there is a correspondence between the develop- 
ment of the mind and the growth of the body, we 
deny that it follows from that either that the 
mind did not pre-exist or that the death of the 
body implies its annihilation/ " 

The lecturer himself could see that there was 
some " lost motion " in this theory, and observed : 
14 This reasoning, carried out to its legitimate 
conclusion, would make the minds of all men 
equal — even that of the man-eating savage or the 
idiotic cretin would compare favorably with the 
greatest benefactors of the race. The Australian 
on his log and Sir Isaac Newton, disembodied and 
deprived of the imperfect tools of the present 
life, would become co-artisans of equal merit in 



44 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

that land where there are no tools to work with, 
and no work to do." 

Rip Van Winkle agreed with him in this criti- 
cism, and proceeded to give the materialistic view, 
or such deductions as science is able to present, by 
quoting from Dr. Austin Flint's work on " Human 
Physiology/' 

" ' At the present day, we are in possession of a 
sufficient number of positive facts to render it cer- 
tain that there is and can be no intelligence with- 
out brain-substance ; that, when brain-substance 
exists in a normal condition, intellectual phenom- 
ena are manifested with a vigor proportionate to 
the amount of matter existing ; that destruction 
of brain-substance produces loss of intellectual 
power ; and, finally, that exercise of the intellect- 
ual faculties involves a physiological destruction 
of nervous substance, necessitating regeneration 
by nutrition here as in other tissues in the living 
organism. The brain is not, strictly speaking, the 
organ of the mind, for this statement would imply 
that the mind exists as a force independently of 
the brain; but the mind is produced by the brain- 
substance ; and intellectual force, if we may term 
the intellect a force, can be produced only by the 
transmutation of a certain quantity of matter/ ' 

The stout gentleman was pleased with the men- 
tion of Dr. Flint, and said that he knew Flint in 
his lifetime, and a very able man he was. " But/' 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 45 

he continued, " if Dr. Flint has stated facts, and 
his conclusion be true that 'mind is produced by 
the brain-substance,' then the brain becomes a 
functioning organ, and may be compared to other 
organs in the animal body, whose functions are 
well established. Bile, tears, saliva, and urine are 
secretions from and by their respective organs, 
the liver, the lachrymal and salivary glands, and the 
kidneys ; so, if mind is only a secretion or excre- 
tion from the brain, this theory stands on as poor 
ground as the preachers' theory, and the exclama- 
tion of Pope Leo the Tenth, when he dismissed his 
prelates from their discussion of the soul, Et redit 
in nihilum, quod fuit ante nihil* is applicable to 
both, and the ' assertion ' of Colonel Ingersoll 
remains unchallenged and unrefuted." 

Our old philosopher expected this sophism, and 
challenged his opponent in these words : 

" All these secretory and excretory organs have 
blood as a material from which, by their own 
action, the various secretions and excretions are 
formed. These secretions are material substances, 
and may be reduced to about the same elements 
as the blood from which they are formed. 

"You may ask if the brain has not blood 
also. 

" I would answer yes, and a very abundant 
supply, but it is for the nutrition of the brain- 

* It began of nothing, and in nothing it ends. 



46 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

substance itself, and not for any secretory purposes. 
The anatomy of the liver shows that it has a 
double circulation, one for the renewal of liver- 
substance and the other for the purpose of fab- 
ricating bile ; and so with all the other secretory 
organs of the body. The spleen is the only organ 
of any consequence except the brain which has 
but one circulation, and, as there is no visible effect 
of splenic action, its function to this day is prob- 
lematical. 

" The mind being the product of brain-action, 
the question arises, * By what manner of means is 
this product the result of brain-action ? • 

" Bile, the product of liver-action, is a material 
substance made of blood, another material sub- 
stance. Mind, the product of brain-action, is 
immaterial, and made from — what? 

" That like begets like is a law of nature. 

" Two of a sort will beget the same sort. 

" What does the brain make the mind out of ? 
Nothing? The idea of creating something out of 
nothing has never been allowed to any power save 
Deity. Does it make it out of itself? The brain 
is material substance, and to admit an immaterial 
effect from a material cause would belie the law 
that like produces like. ,, 

The reader will perceive now that every theory 
and every chemical or molecular change that may 
occur in the brain have been examined and laid 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 47 

aside, and that the present tack is the only one 
that holds out the least hope of a rational solu- 
tion of the problem. 

The subject will be further elucidated in the 
next chapter by an elaborate argument from 
analogy. 



CHAPTER XL 

ELECTRICITY. 

Rip Van Winkle, continuing his discourse, 
brought up, as an analogous example to the mind 
and brain, one of the most interesting subjects 
of which natural philosophy treats, and address- 
ing his companion with an earnestness unusual to 
an octogenarian said : " Electricity is undoubtedly 
a force in nature, yet we never see manifesta- 
tions of it except when controlled by or control- 
ling matter ; and electrical force, like intellectual 
force, can be produced only by the transmutation 
of a certain quantity of matter. 

" It is as immaterial as mind itself, and bears 
the same relation to matter that mind does to 
brain-substance. 

" It is true that very dissimilar combinations 
of matter can be made to develop the phenomena 
of electricity, while brain-substance alone is able 
to develop mind ; still, this can be no argument 
against the analogous relations of the two when 
we take into consideration that one is an organ- 
ized and the other an unorganized force. 

" We might ask the same questions about elec- 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 49 

tricity and its connection with matter that we 
asked about mind and its connection with brain- 
substance, and the same answers would be appli- 
cable to both. 

" That electricity occupies space between mate- 
rial bodies is not disputed, and, moreover, it may 
be concentrated and stored up by machines and 
used at will, or it may be transferred from one 
body into another and held, or it may be allowed 
to dissipate itself again into space. 

" Matter then is one thing, and electricity is 
another thing. 

" Brain-substance is one thing and mind is 
another thing. 

" Electrical machines, by the transmutation of a 
certain quantity of matter, make manifest elec- 
tricity which exists independently of the electrical 
machines. 

" Brain-substance, by the transmutation of a 
certain quantity of matter, makes manifest mind 
which exists independently of brain-substance/' 

At this point the lecturer interrupted the old 
man by saying, " The course of reasoning you have 
adopted by your system of exclusion, and your 
appeals to exceptions or denials, would leave no 
other conclusion possible except the one you 
have arrived at ; but you are still in a dilemma 
as to the priority of matter or electricity, and 
of brain-substance or mind." 



50 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

"I understood," replied Van Winkle, "that we 
had decided that mind in its individuality or per- 
sonality is secondary to brain-substance ; as the 
argument advanced by Dr. Draper to the con- 
trary led to so many absurdities that you your- 
self first pointed them out. But, as that was 
more of a speculation than a rational conclusion, 
I will endeavor to show why the individual mind 
is secondary to brain-substance, and why brain- 
substance is secondary to mind as a whole." 

" I am a good listener," observed his companion, 
" and have good ears — proceed." 

" In the first place," continued Rip, " the facts 
stated by Dr. Flint make it positively certain that 
there can be no (individual) mind without brain- 
substance." 

The lecturer answered this by quoting Dr. 
Draper's illustration of the artisan and tool. 

"'An accomplished artisan cannot display his 
powers through an imperfect tool, nor, if the tool 
should be broken or become useless through im- 
pairment, is it any proof that the artisan has 
ceased to exist ; and so, though we admit that 
there is a correspondence between the develop- 
ment of the mind and the growth of the body, we 
deny that it follows from that either that the 
mind did not pre-exist or that the death of the 
body implies its annihilation/ " 

" Dr. Draper has a very nice way of putting 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. $1 

things," replied Rip ; " but if each individual mind 
pre-existed each individual brain, then each indi- 
vidual mind must either have existed from all 
eternity or have come into existence at some in- 
definite time prior to each individual brain, and in 
either case the conclusion would be an absurdity." 

"Why an absurdity? " asked his companion. 

" Because, if the mind existed from all eternity it 
would be self-existent, and in consequence be sub- 
ject to no law. It would be conditionless, which 
we know to be untrue, as every mind is subject to 
the law of its own surroundings and conditions. 
If it is made by some power other than itself, 
and made to be the owner and user of each indi- 
vidual brain, and made prior to that brain, then we 
have a mind-maker, and that mind-maker either 
makes mind out of something or creates it out of 
nothing ; and to admit the power to create at all 
is to admit a creator, and that would end this 
investigation. 

" The individual mind, then, is secondary to the 
individual brain ; but that brain is secondary to 
collective mind, or mind as a whole, is proved by 
the fact that, for an individual mind to be second- 
ary to any individual brain, that individual brain 
must stand in the relation of cause and effect to 
its individual mind ; and, as brain-substance cannot 
create or make mind out of nothing, it must have 
mind as a whole, or collective mind, as a source of 



52 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

supply upon which it can draw, in order to make 
manifest any individual mind. The electrical 
machine has electricity as a whole to draw upon 
before it can collect and store up any individual 
charge of electricity." 

M You speak of collective mind, or mind as a 
whole," observed the stout gentleman. M Do I 
understand you to mean that this collective mind 
pervades all space, is universal — everywhere ? " 

11 I mean this," said the old teacher, " that mind 
outside of brain is like time outside of the present 
moment, like space outside of your own surround- 
ings — limitless. 

11 If mind had not existed before brain, brain 
never could have made it manifest unless we allow 
to brain a creative power. If mind did exist before 
brain, then to say when it began to exist, is 
equivalent to saying when time began to exist. 
If mind does or ever did exist outside of brain, 
then it is not circumscribed — it is infinite." 

u Even if we grant your position of a universal 
mind," replied the lecturer, "infinity of mind does 
not necessarily imply the existence of an infinite 
being. It may be that this universal mind is 
latent, and shows no activity until concentrated 
and individualized by the action of brain-sub- 
stance." 

" We know," said the old man, M that electricity 
is active before it is concentrated by the electrical 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 53 

machine, and if mind pervades the universe out- 
side of brain, and is only active when concentrated, 
stored up, and made manifest by brain, if all space 
between material bodies be filled up with inactive 
mind, and is only drawn upon by the poor little 
brains of fishes and birds and animals and man, 
of insects, and the mites of the microscopic 
world, then we must say that the supply is out of 
all proportion to the demand ; but if this omni- 
present mind thinks, and the evidence that it does 
is so great that we cannot doubt it, then we have 
an infinite intelligence, to say the least of it, and 
an infinite intelligence without the existence of 
' being ' is scarcely conceivable.'' 

" Your argument is ingenious," answered the 
stout gentleman, " but it is not sufficient to nullify 
the assertion of Colonel Ingersoll. The tack may be 
in the right direction, but the wind is not strong 
enough to fill the sails." 

" Perhaps," replied the old man, "we may be 
able to find some additional negations, in the doc- 
trine of dysteleology, or purposelessness in nature, 
which, added to this ingenious tack, may fill the 
sails enough to keep the ship moving." 



CHAPTER XII. 

DESIGN. 

Rip Van Winkle continued the conversation 
thus: 

" The argument of design has suffered more at 
the hands of its friends than of its enemies. The 
former have made it a mass of contradictions by 
denying much of its essence, while the latter 
simply ignore it. 

"They have likewise made Jehovah the butt of 
ridicule by denying him many of his attributes, 
and investing him with too much of human vir- 
tue. He has become a crowned demi-god upon 
the altars of superstition and fear, and no God to 
the intellect of man. 

" What we are seeking here is an unknown quan- 
tity. If we find that quantity to contain mercy, 
all right. If we find it sodden with envy, spite 
and malice, it matters not. If w r e find in it all the 
elements of human character, shall we be cha- 
grined ? Suppose we find the God of the Bible, 
shall Colonel Ingersoll be unhappy? or, if we find 
an * infinite vacuum/ shall he rejoice? " 

" Colonel Ingersoll would rejoice to find the 
truth," observed the stout gentleman. 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST, 55 

"Then let's seek the truth with such means as 
we have," said Van Winkle, and continuing his 
discourse said : " The doctrine of dysteleology, 
or purposelessness in nature, offers a wide scope 
to the discerning powers, and must in a reasonable 
measure account for facts, or take its place with 
design as ordinarily presented, and the infinite 
goodness of Jehovah. 

"As we have said before, one fact impinging 
upon any theory will undo the theory and make it 
untenable. 

" Haeckel, in his ' Evolution of Man/ speaking 
of the rudimentary organs of animals says : ' They 
are among the most interesting phenomena with 
which comparative anatomy acquaints us, be- 
cause they most forcibly refute the customary 
teleological philosophy of the schools. They 
must be regarded as parts which in the course of 
many generations have gradually been disused 
and withdrawn from active service. Owing to dis- 
use and consequent loss of function, the organs 
gradually waste away, and finally entirely disap- 
pear. Hence, they are of the greatest philosophi- 
cal importance ; they clearly prove that the me- 
chanical conception of organisms is alone correct.' 

"This * mechanical conception of organisms' 
makes sexual attraction dependent upon the 
1 elective affinity of two differing cells, — the sperm- 
cell and the egg-cell' 



$6 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

11 The words of Haeckel are these ; • The coales- 
cence of two cells is everywhere the single, original 
impelling force. At first the two united cells 
may have been entirely alike. Soon, however, by 
natural selection, a contrast must have arisen 
between them. One cell became a female egg-cell, 
the other, a male seed or sperm-cehV 

" Was ever assumption more gratuitous? Did 
.ecclesiastical bigotry ever formulate a more dog- 
matic conclusion ? And yet the mechanical 
theory of the universe is built upon just such 
foundations. 

" After paying a passionate tribute to love as 
the * source of the most splendid creations of art/ 
and reverencing it as ' the most powerful factor 
in human civilization/ he says : ' So wonderful 
is love, and so immeasurably important is its in- 
fluence on mental life, on the most varied func- 
tions of the medullary tube, that in this point 
more than in any other ' supernatural ' causation 
seems to mock every natural explanation. " 

" A theory which is founded only upon a ' must/ 
ought not to complain of a similar theory, because 
it sets out with the ' Supernatural/ and seems to 
mock at the explanations of its degenerate off- 
spring, however much it may claim to be natural/' 

" I think," replied the lecturer, "that you do 
Professor Haeckel an injustice by quoting only a 
part of what he has said on this subject. A read- 






INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 57 

ing of his book may place a different construction 
upon the doctrine of purposelessness versus de- 
sign in nature. Having the book in my traveling 
bag, with your permission I will read that portion 
which bears directly upon this theory. " And 
taking from his satchel the first volume of the 
u Evolution of Man," he read on page 109, from 
the article " Dysteleology," these words: 

" Almost every organism, with the exception of 
the lowest and most imperfect, and especially 
every highly developed vegetable or animal body, 
man as well as others, possesses one or more struc- 
tures which are useless to its organism, valueless 
for its life-purposes, worthless for its functions. 
Thus all of us have in our bodies various muscles 
which we never use ; for example, the muscles in 
the external ear and the parts immediately sur- 
rounding it. These outer and inner ear muscles 
are of great use to most mammals, especially such 
as have the power of erecting the ears, because 
the form and position of the ear may thus be 
materially altered, in order to take in the various 
waves of sound in the best possible manner. In 
man, however, and in other animals not possessing 
the power of pricking up the ears, the muscles, 
though present, are useless. As our ancestors 
long ago discontinued to make use of them, we 
have lost the power of moving them. Again, 
there is in the inner corner of our eye a small 



58 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST, 

crescent-shaped or semi-lunar fold of skin, the 
last remnant of a third inner eyelid, the so-called 
nictitating membrane. In our primitive relatives, 
the Sharks, and in many other vertebrates, this 
membrane is highly developed, and of great use to 
the eye, but with us it is abortive and entirely 
useless. On the intestinal canal we have an 
appendage which is not only useless, but may 
become very injurious, the so-called vermiform 
appendage of the caecum. This little appendage 
of the intestine not infrequently causes fatal 
disease. If in the process of digestion, by an 
unlucky accident, a cherry-stone or some other 
hard body is pressed into its narrow passage, a 
violent inflammation ensues, which usually causes 
death. This vermiform appendage is not of the 
slightest use in our organism ; it is the last and 
dangerous remnant of an organ which was much 
larger in our vegetarian ancestors, and was of 
great use to them in digestion, as it is still in 
many herbivorous animals, such as apes and 
rodents, in which it is of considerable size and of 
great physiological importance. 

" Other similar rudimentary organs exist in us 
as in all higher animals, in different parts of the 
body. They are among the most interesting 
phenomena with which comparative anatomy 
acquaints us : firstly, because they afford the most 
obvious proof of the theory of descent ; and sec- 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 59 

ondly, because they most forcibly refute the cus- 
tomary teleological philosophy of the schools. 
The doctrine of descent renders the explanation 
of these remarkable phenomena very simple. 
They must be regarded as parts which in the 
course of many generations have gradually been 
disused and withdrawn from active service. 
Owing to disuse and consequent loss of function, 
the organs gradually waste away, and finally 
entirely disappear. The existence of rudimentary 
organs admits of no other explanation. Hence 
they are of the greatest philosophical importance ; 
they clearly prove that the mechanical or monis- 
tic conception of the nature of organisms is alone 
correct, and that the prevailing teleological or 
dualistic method of accounting for them is entirely 
false. The very ancient fable of the all-wise plan 
according to which ' the Creators hand has 
ordained all things with wisdom and understand- 
ing/ the empty phrase about the purposive 'plan 
of structure ' of organisms, is in this way com- 
pletely disproved. Stronger arguments can hardly 
be furnished against the customary teleology or 
doctrine of design than the fact that all more 
highly developed organisms possess such rudiment- 
ary organs." 

" I am glad/' replied the ancient school-master, 
" that you happened to have the book, for the 
whole extract places the doctrine in a more awk- 



60 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

ward position than did the few lines I chanced to 
remember. A doctrine which so easily accounts for 
these rudimentary organs surely ought to account, 
with equal facility, for organs and functions which 
still remain in active use and operation. The 
human eye, if I remember correctly, occupies ten 
pages in the ' Evolution of Man/ 

" This is the way he commences his description : 
" ' The history of the development of the eye is 
equally remarkable and instructive. For although 
the eye, owing to its exquisite optical arrange- 
ment and wonderful structure, is one of the most 
complex and most nicely adapted organs, yet it 
develops, without a pre-conceived design, from a 
very simple rudiment in the outer skin cov- 
ering/ 

" White he can so readily account for * the last 
remnant of a third inner eyelid, the so-called 
nictitating membrane/ he does not once mention 
a little contrivance in the appendages to the eye- 
ball by which the movement called rotation is 
effected. We can but admire the silence of Pro- 
fessor Haeckel on one of the most important sys- 
tems of the animal body in his attempt to prove 
that man is the blood-relative of apes and worms. 
In these two exhaustive volumes of over nine 
hundred pages he devotes ten lines to the develop- 
ment of the muscular system, yet this system 
gives form and elasticity, beauty and strength to 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 6l 

the body, and is a maze of mechanical principles 
subservient to beauty and use. 

" In the eye socket is a little fusiform muscle, 
whose use it is to rotate the eyeball, and to do 
this it must pull the globe in another direction 
from itself. This is accomplished by the muscle 
passing over a pulley on the same principle of the 
block and tackle. 

" How did it get over the pulley ? 

" Is this fact a result of the terrible and cease- 
less ' struggle for existence ' ? 

" Did this little muscle have such a craving de- 
sire for existence, that it projected itself over the 
pulley, and submitted to be doubled up on itself, 
for the sake of being there ; or did the eye have 
such a longing for being rolled about, that it built 
up this muscle, and hung its tendon over the pul- 
ley, because there was no other room in the orbit 
for it ? Explain this muscle, and I yield at once 
to the doctrine of purposelessness. ,, 

" Colonel Ingersoll," replied the lecturer, "in 
his second letter to Dr. Field, answered the argu- 
ment of design in these words : • You see what 
you call evidences of intelligence in the universe, 
and you draw the conclusion that there must be 
an infinite intelligence. Your conclusion is far 
wider than your premise. 

" ' It is illogical to say, because of the existence 
of this earth, and of what you can see in and 



62 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

about it, that there must be an infinite intelli- 
gence. You do not know that even the creation 
of this world, and of all planets discovered, re- 
quired an infinite power or infinite wisdom. 

" ' I admit that it is impossible for me to look at 
a watch and draw the inference that there was no 
design in its construction, or that it only hap- 
pened. I could not regard it as a product of 
some freak of nature, neither could I imagine 
that its various parts were brought • together 
and set in motion by chance. I am not a be- 
liever in chance. But there is a vast differ- 
ence between what a man has made, and the 
materials of which he has constructed the things 
he has made. You find a watch, and you say 
that it exhibits or shows design. You insist that 
it is so wonderful it must have had a designer ; 
in other words, that it is too wonderful not to 
have been constructed. You then find the watch- 
maker; and you say with regard to him, that he, 
too, must have had a designer, for he is more won- 
derful than the watch. In imagination you go 
from the watchmaker to the being you call God ; 
and you say he designed the watchmaker, but he 
himself was not designed because he is too wonder- 
ful to have been designed. And yet, in the case of 
the watch and the watchmaker, it was the wonder 
that suggested design, while in the case of the 
maker of the watchmaker, the wonder denied a 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 63 

designer. Do you not see that this argument 
devours itself ? ' " 

" Colonel Ingersoll was then contending with a 
preacher," said the old man, " and he was com- 
bating an assumption. 

" Dr. Field assumed God. In this case, nothing 
has been assumed ; but from one single fact, 
which you dare not deny, an infinite intelligence 
has been demonstrated by reasoning which is in- 
controvertible. If this infinite intelligence is the 
same which Dr. Field assumed, then instead of 
Dr. Field's argument devouring itself, your own 
has become a felo-de-se " 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HYBRIDS AND PHYSIOLOGICAL PAIN. 

The old gentleman, continuing his argument, 
said : " It is a well-known fact that there is a class 
of animals in the world known as hybrids. These 
animals are generally produced by the interven- 
tion of man ; but we cannot deny that they are a 
product of nature, and that they may, and do, 
occasionally come about without any interference 
on the part of man. Every close observer must 
have noticed the almost insatiable erotism of 
these animals. The genital organs in both sexes 
are perfect with one exception — that of function 
— they are barren.* The common mule is a type 
of this class, and is bred for man's benefit alone. 
It is one of the most erotic of animals. The male 
is without sperm-cells, the female has no egg-cells. 
The true function of the genital organs has never 
been exercised. The secondary function, that of 
copulation, has been exercised so rarely that it 
amounts to ' disuse/ yet these organs have neither 
become atrophied nor rudimentary." 

*The "Mechanical Conception of Organisms " makes sexual 
attraction dependent upon the " elective affinity of two differing 
cells, the sperm-cell and the egg-cell/' 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 65 

" It seems to me," replied the stout gentleman, 
" that it is straining a point to bring hybrids into 
the controversy. These animals are an exception 
to the general rule. 

" For their production it requires an amalgama- 
tion of two distinct species, and if reproduction 
was possible to this class, the result could not be a 
hybrid, but another distinct species. 

" ' Disuse ' can have nothing to do with any of 
the organs in the hybrid body, as each individual 
of this class stands in the same cognate position 
with the first as with the last that might come 
upon the earth. 

" Evolution is at a stand-still with regard to 
hybrids. They are an exception to the law." 

u I am glad to see," remarked the old gentleman, 
" that your eyes are beginning to open. There is 
more, I dare say, on this line, than you have 
thought of. 

" Another fact connected with the animal body 
is worthy of study, — the pains of parturition. For 
all other pains to which the animal economy is 
subject, there is an adequate cause, a justifiable and 
pathological reason. For this pain science is a 
sealed book, physiology is dumb, and pathology 
has no answer. According to all analogy, the 
parturient uterus ought to contract without pain. 
The heart, stomach, bladder, and other hollow 
muscles cause no pain either in distention or con- 
5 



66 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

traction : then wherefore the womb ? If pregnancy 
be a pathological condition, then law is at fault. 
If according to nature, wherefore the pain ? 

" No law can be formulated from one isolated 
fact, neither can any known law hang the tendon 
of a muscle over a pulley. 

" The barrenness of hybrids is the strongest kind 
of proof against the transmutation of species, and 
their salacious propensities in connection with 
their inability to procreate would place them out- 
side the limits of law." 

" If," observed the lecturer, " you place them 
outside the limits of law, they would become out- 
laws." 

" And truly so," replied Van Winkle. " Nature 
has outlaws as well as society. 

"The budding of fruit-trees is a species of out- 
lawry which nature will not permit for many gen- 
erations in succession. After a while it becomes 
impossible to make the bud live. There is not a 
race of mulattoes on the face of the earth. They 
will go back, and all be white or all negroes, or all 
die out. And so with improved stock. They re- 
vert to their original place as soon as the hand of 
man is withdrawn." 

" Would you place physiological pain in the 
same category ? " asked the lecturer. 

" There is no other place to put it," replied the 
teacher. " Physiological pain is an anomaly in 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 67 

nature, still it cannot be called a freak, for a regular 
recurrence of any fact will destroy the idea of 
supervenient causes/' 

" I infer/' said the lecturer, " from your mode of 
reasoning, that you regard physiological pain, hy- 
brids, and the various improvements upon natural 
products, together with the results of the destruct- 
ive efforts of man, as being extrinsic to natural 
processes, and, as such, should be placed outside 
of natural law." 

" You seem to have the idea," said the old man, 
" but I fear you may draw inferences which would 
not be justified by the introspection. 

" Nature cannot do an unnatural thing, neither 
can man. 

" We speak of man's work as being artificial only 
as a result which nature would not and could not 
accomplish without individual intelligences. It 
cannot be unnatural, because every product of an 
individual intelligence (such as a shoe or a hat, for 
instance) is artificial in the sense that, for its 
accomplishment, the individual intelligence has 
modified and utilized the means placed at its com- 
mand by the universal intelligence, and in this 
sense alone can it be called unnatural. Likewise, 
pain induced by the throes of a parturient uterus, 
together with hybrid products, while they are 
perfectly natural, must be regarded as bearing 
the same relation to the regular current of natural 



68 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

events which the artificial products of man sustain 
to natural law; and, there being nothing analogous 
in nature to these special and arbitrary effects, we 
are obliged to regard them as the ipse dixit of 
that infinite intelligence of which the mind of man 
is an infinitesimal reflection. " 

" It appears, then/' said the lecturer, " that all 
your array of logical sequences has only brought 
you at last to the irrational assumption of the 
average theologian, and that Dr. Field's Presby- 
terian God is the unknown quantity which you 
have sought with so much labor." 

" The answer we may find," replied the teacher, 
" in the solution of any problem does not and 
cannot depend upon our likes or dislikes. To me 
individually, it is a matter of perfect indifference 
whether God, devil, heaven, hell, or immortality be 
fact or fiction. I would not change it from what it 
is if I had the power, but, it being a fact that the 
three angles of a triangle are equal to two right 
angles, I am glad to know it : so, if God is, I wish 
to know it ; if hell be a fact, I wish to know that. 
I have no feeling in the matter. All I can do is 
to learn the truth according to the lights before 
me." 

At this speech, the stout gentleman made a 
spasmodic and involuntary effort to flirt the rudi- 
mentary, nictitating membrane of his " primitive 
ancestors" over the visual organ, as if to remove 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 69 

a mote or to diagnose the disease nyctalopia, 
but finding the effort useless, and the impliciti 
morbi more in the brain than in the eye, he gazed 
earnestly at thisdried-up specimen of aged human- 
ity, and asked in tones of astonishment : 

" What kind of man are you ? I have been 
endeavoring for two hours to get at what you 
believe, and I am more at a loss than ever. 
You commit yourself to nothing. Even the 
deductions of your own strange mode of reason- 
ing are not affirmed. You start with what 
you call the fact of the human mind, and reason 
out in your own way another fact, which you call 
an infinite intelligence. 

"You seem to argue that the intelligence of 
man is nothing but an accumulation of a bit of 
this infinite intelligence in the brain of each indi- 
vidual, to perpetrate petty acts for good and evil 
so long as it is used by or uses the brain with 
which it is intimately connected. 

11 This would make a theology with which I am 
unacquainted." 

In reply, Van Winkle said: " When you set out 
with premises which are true, axiomatic, self-evi- 
dent, and reason logically, the end of your inquiry 
is truth. The result should neither be anticipated 
nor imagined, but accepted when found, whether 
we like or dislike it. Hating a fact cannot make 
it false, neither can love for an error make it true. 



yo INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

" A broader view of this infinite intelligence 
might enable you to understand the apparent con- 
tradictions in the Jewish and Christian theologies. 

" These apparent discrepancies, garbled by- 
sophism and rhapsody, present to the murky eye 
of ignorance a tangled skein of mysticism, and en- 
able such men as Mr. Ingersoll to pass the juggler's 
pieces of their scoffing pyrrhonism as true coin. ,, 

" It is with difficulty/' said the lecturer, " that 
I get your ideas from your language. What do 
you mean by ' a broader view of this infinite 
intelligence ' ? " 

"The word i infinite' ought to give you a hint 
as to what I mean. 

" Infinite intelligence implies a knowledge of all 
ignorance, all error, all mistake. It is not con- 
fined to the good, the beautiful, and the true. It 
takes in the universe, with its pleasures and its 
pains, its beauties and its deformities. 

" As man can impart his knowledge to his fellow- 
man without diminishing his own, so the infinite 
intelligence can, without detracting from itself, 
supply all the brains in the universe. But, as a 
part can never equal the whole, to say, 'An infi- 
nite God has no excuse for leaving his children in 
doubt and darkness/ is a travesty upon the ques- 
tion, ' Why should the infinite ask anything from 
the finite ?'* 

* " Colonel Ingersoll to Mr. Gladstone," page 620. 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 7 1 

" Colonel Ingersoll says : • The sentence " There 
is a God " could have been imprinted on every 
blade of grass, on every leaf, on every star/ * 
The same, with equal propriety, might be said of 
this sentence : ' The three angles of a triangle are 
equal to two right angles/ 

" Does everybody in the world know this math- 
ematical truth ? 

" Suppose Colonel Ingersoll's mind was so con- 
structed that it would be impossible for him to 
comprehend the demonstration of this problem, 
and then suppose he was to say, ' In the nature 
of things there can be no evidence of the truth 
of the proposition that " the three angles of a 
triangle are equal to two right angles : " ' would 
this have any effect upon the truth of the propo- 
sition ? 

" Infinite intelligence implies more than the 
words import. To condition in word or thought, 
in act or attribute, is to detract from infinity : 
therefore, being is as much of a necessary attribute 
of infinite intelligence as omniscience or omni-. 
presence. 

"This conclusion may appear at first sight to be 
%.nonsequitur; but, reasoning from analogy, we can 
but place it in the catalogue of syllogisms. Our 
perceptions only give us ideas of intelligence con- 
nected with, or emanating from, human beings ; and 

* " Letter to Dr. Field," page 40. 



J2 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

to conceive of an infinite intelligence without the 
attribute of being, is as impossible as to conceive 
of an individual intelligence apart from a human 
being/* 

" I would infer," said the lecturer, " from what 
you have already said, that you do not acknowl- 
edge the Presbyterian God of Dr. Field, yet you 
have worked up in your own mind an infinite 
being. I am at a loss to understand your conception 
of this being. Is he the God of the Jew, Christian 
or Mohammedan? Who is he? What is he? 
What is his character ? " 

" My argument," said Van Winkle, " has been, 
all the way through this discussion, to nullify the 
' assertion ' of Colonel Ingersoll, that ' there can be 
no evidence of the existence of an infinite being/ 
If the evidence adduced is of any value; if I have 
been able to show that the theory of develop- 
ment which involves the transmutation of species, 
the doctrine of purposelessness, etc., is based upon 
assumed postulates ; and by pure reason to demon- 
strate that the human mind would be an impossi- 
bility from a physical or mechanical conception of 
organisms, — then we surely have arrived at God : 
not the God of the Presbyterians, for I thoroughly 
agree with Colonel Ingersoll that their description 
of God more nearly resembles an ' infinite vac- 
uum ; ' not the God of any church or creed : but 
the God who says, ' I form the light and create 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 73 

darkness ; I make peace and create evil ; ' the 
God who said to the woman, ' In sorrow shalt thou 
bring forth children ; ' that God of whom Job said, 
1 He breaketh me with a tempest, and multiplieth 
my wounds without cause ; ' the same God who 
hated Esau and loved Jacob before they were yet 
born ; he who put wool upon the negro's head, and 
straight hair upon the white man's ; who gave the 
mule to man for a beast of burden, and virtually 
said, ' So far shalt thou go, and no farther ; ' he 
who hung the tendon of the pathetic muscle over 
a pulley ; who changed the two coalescent prim- 
ordial cells, one into male and the other into female ; 
the same God who capacitated the soul of Colonel 
Ingersoll for such emotional states as the follow- 
ing words would imply : 

" * I have sometimes wished that there were 
words of pure hatred out of which I might con- 
struct sentences like snakes ; out of which I might 
construct sentences with mouths fanged, that 
had forked tongues ; out of which I might con- 
struct sentences that w T rithed and hissed : then I 
could give my opinion of the rebels during the 
great struggle for the preservation of this nation/ * 

"The same God whom Colonel Ingersoll so cor- 
dially hates, and whose existence is affected by 
this hatred about as much as the existence of 
rheumatism is affected by his hatred for that." 

* Speeches, Wit, Wisdom, and Eloquence. 



PART II. 

"HE IS UNCOMMONLY POWERFUL IN HIS OWN 
LINE, BUT IT IS NOT THE LINE OF A FIRST- 
RATE MAN." 

In all the catalogue of human frailties, no trait 
is more censurable, more justly deserving of pity 
and contempt, than the overweening egotism of 
oracular wisdom. 

Poet and philosopher have combined with ridi- 
cule and blame, to expunge this nauseous dilet- 
tantism from the list of human foibles. Pharisai- 
cal notions of superior wisdom and superior virtue 
have met with rebuff at the high court of the 
divine intelligence. 

Nothing but the most brazen impudence, or 
the petrified feeling of utter indifference, or the 
unhallowed desire for notoriety mingled with 
criminal ignorance, can induce any one to pander 
to the baser passions of mankind by an attempt 
to subvert all truth, and to mock at the sacred 
beliefs of man. 

The rottenness of priest-craft has no more to 
do with religious truth than political jobbery has 
to do with state-craft. Many a foul stream flows 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 75 

from a crystal fountain, and to condemn the 
source on account of the mingling of sewage and 
garbage is to condemn the sunshine because it 
falls upon a dung-heap. 

The scientific artisan builds a burglar-proof 
safe. The educated burglar devises means to get 
into it. Knowledge is the hand-maid of the bad as 
well as of the good. The oxyhydrogen blow-pipe 
in the hands of a thief will silently burn a hole 
through steel as surely as it will do the same work 
for the chemist. Dynamite will exert the same 
force for the criminal that it does for the engineer 
or the miner. 

As the criminal studies science, so the sophist 
studies art. 

Ornate and striking sentences, well-rounded 
periods, poetical effusions, and oratorical grandilo- 
quence capture the senses and inflame the passions. 

Logic is prosaic and dull ; rhetoric is drunk in 
with avidity while it moves to tears or excites 
to madness. 

The picture of a dying Saviour has carried more 
penitents to the mourners bench than all the 
books on polemical divinity. 

The slave-mother deprived of her babe has 
stirred up the bitterest feelings in Colonel Inger- 
soll's soul and caused him to rail at Jehovah. 

He has a contempt for the Christian penitent, 
while the slave-master has a contempt for him. 



76 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

Is reason the arbiter in either case, or does Colonel 
Ingersoll possess all and the other two none ? 

Is truth a reality, or is it a weather-cock to be 
bandied about by the opinions of men ? 

Theologians and lay-Christians have fought 
infidelity with the Bible. It is like fighting the 
devil with snow-balls. Satan pretends to be a 
great reasoner, a profound logician. Daniel De 
Foe, in writing his history, proved him to be a fool. 
He is the same fool to-day that he has ever been. 
He is more ignorant than criminal. His theories 
are confuted by well-known facts. His sayings, 
tested by logic, are as " sounding brass or a tink- 
ling cymbal/' 

Before the end of the discussion in the last 
chapter, the train had stopped at a supply station, 
and in the very midst of the controversy several 
gentlemen entered the car, and, observing the ani- 
mated debate going on between the two passen- 
gers, naturally seated themselves in close prox- 
imity to the disputants, Some of these gentlemen 
knew the younger man, and had heard him lecture 
on his favorite subject. They were familiar also 
with the writings of Colonel Ingersoll, and observ- 
ing the attitude of profound earnestness with 
v/hich the octogenarian deported himself, together 
with his shriveled and almost insignificant appear- 
ance, they soon became an audience of eager 
listeners, while the old teacher, animated still more 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. yy 

by their attention, seemed to forget that he was a 
long way from home, that he was traveling at the 
rate of forty miles an hour over a country he had 
never seen before, and that he was talking before 
strangers to whom he was utterly unknown, and 
whom he would likely never see again. 

He seemed to feel that he was in his native pine 
forest in the sand-hills of Carolina, seated behind 
his desk in the little log cabin where he had taught 
class after class for the past half-century, and 
that he was addressing a score or more of brawny 
young brains on the principles of logic. 

His favorite mode of teaching for many years 
had been by didactic lectures, and his pupils were 
made up from the better class of thinkers, many 
of whom had been to college. 

As age encroached upon his manhood, and 
diminished his powers of bodily endurance, he had 
given up much of the drudgery of the school-room, 
and instead of text-book recitations he taught 
principles by analyzing the current thought of the 
day, thus presenting information in its most 
attractive form. 

After this manner he proceeded to analyze the 
philosophy, or, as he called it, the sophistry, of 
Colonel Ingersoil, and addressing himself to the 
new additions, as well as to his first companion, 
he said : " In his first reply to Dr. Field, the 
colonel says, ' Reason is the supreme and final 



78 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

test. If God has made a revelation to man, it 
must have been addressed to his reason. There 
is no other faculty that could even decipher 
the address. Extinguish that and naught re- 
mains/ 

" Here we can cordially shake hands with the 
great iconoclast, yet I know of no one who makes 
more pathetic appeals to the feelings and passions. 

"With his thunder and invective, what a fa- 
mous preacher he would have made! 

" He seems to think that Dr. Field was trying 
to cozen him with the ' fatherly ' advice to soften 
his colors. Dr. Field was only telling him the 
truth when he told him that his words would be 
more weighty if not so strong. 

"Voltaire, Rousseau, Paine, and Hume wrote 
with persuasive pens. Gregg wetted the pages of 
his ' Creed of Christendom ' with bitter tears, and 
the passionless and soulless philosophy of materi- 
alism never deals in invective. 

" The continuous diatribes, flowing like a stream 
of mephitic vapor from the mouth and pen of this 
modern apostle of rationalism, hover over the 
thoughtless multitude, and sway them to and fro 
with their Jack-o'-lantern lights, causing hurrahs 
for the moment, and departing like the specter of 
the Brocken without leaving a visible track. 

" Sam Jones, or any other popular revivalist, with 
a similar use of language, and the same per- 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 79 

sonal magnetism, can at any moment turn the 
same tide in his direction with a wave of his 
wand. 

" It is the forte of the revivalist to coax the lan- 
guage for a picture ; a horrid and gloomy portrait 
of hell — a weapon with which he wounds the 
softest chords of the mother's heart, and rends 
the tenderest sympathies of innocent childhood. 
He succeeds in making miserable for a short time 
his wife and his baby, his mother and his sister, 
and thinks he has done God's service. He talks 
about the soul as though he had a sample in his 
pocket, and its destiny as if power had been dele- 
gated to him for its disposal. Should the phi- 
losopher imitate the priest ? 

"And more, Colonel Ingersoll ought to remem- 
ber this scientific fact — that nothing is lost- — that 
the ' correlation and conservation ' of energy is an 
admitted truth, that force is indestructible and 
eternal. 

" He might also study with advantage the teach- 
ings of dynamical physiology, and learn that 
within the brain there is a registering ganglion 
which infallibly records every imprint received 
through the senses. 

" Whether we regard the brain as the instru- 
ment of the mind, or the mind as the product of 
brain action, the case is the same. How bad then 
it is to have error stamped upon a scroll that is 



80 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

incapable of being filled — a scroll that forever 
retains the imprints it receives ! 

M This registering power of mind keeps an accu- 
rate account of all our thoughts, and while very- 
few of them are remembered, the whole scroll is 
so carefully preserved that it may not inaptly be 
compared to a book. 

" ' And I saw the dead, small and great, stand 
before God ; and the books were opened, and 
another book was opened, which is the book of 
life, and the dead were judged out of those things 
which were written in the books, according to 
their works.' 

" What a theme for the teachers of revelation if 
they would give their lessons from a scientific 
stand-point, instead of the hideous object-lessons 
portrayed in Dante's * Inferno ' and some modern 
illustrated Bibles. 

" With these facts before him, can Colonel 
Ingersoll exclaim with Rousseau : ' When the 
last trumpet shall sound, I will present myself 
before the sovereign judge with this book in my 
hand, and loudly proclaim, thus have I acted ; 
these w r ere my thoughts ; such was I *?* 

" A worshiper of the goddess of Reason should 
be consistent at any rate, for when inconsistency 
walks in, reason leaves the house without an adieu. 

" As ' the tree is known by his fruit,' so the 

* M Confessions. " 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 8 1 

philosopher is judged by his maxims. Euclid 
lived in the fifth century B.C. His axioms 
have stood the test of criticism more than 
two thousand years. The mathematical sci- 
ences have been built upon his sayings. 

" ' If a house be divided against itself, that 
house cannot stand/ Colonel Ingersoll has built 
a huge structure which he has decorated with 
ornamental scrolls, and painted with all the 
colors of the rainbow. It glitters in the moon- 
light. Beautiful coruscations flash like the wintry 
aurora around its dome. Upon the highest 
pinnacle he has placed a statue of Minerva. At 
the gilded portals may be read in shining letters, 
1 Templum Sapientice! In mocking silence the 
statue echoes back, ' Satis eloquenticB, sapientics 
parvum' 

" Minerva is impatient upon her throne, and 
desires to abdicate. The house is divided against 
itself. The foundation is sand, and the corner- 
stone, what? The axioms of Colonel Ingersoll. 

" Axiom first. ' That which happens must hap- 
pen/ Axiom second. 'That which must be 
has the right to be/ 

" The colonel is to be admired for his short, 
crisp way of saying things. It leaves no room for 
misunderstandings. He is to be admired for the 
advice he gave to Dr. Field when he said,* i Do 

* " A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field," pages 484-5. 
6 



82 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

not, I pray you, deal in splendid generalities. Be 
explicit/ He is to be admired the more for fol- 
lowing his own advice — for being explicit. A syl- 
logism is the most beautiful thing ever presented 
to a reasoning mind. 

" ' That which happens must happen/ 
" The thumb-screw happened, therefore the 
thumb-screw must have happened. 

" 'That which must be has the right to be/ 
"The thumb-screw must have been, therefore it 
had the right to be. 

" Is Colonel Ingersoll fighting for the right ? 
"' That which happens must happen/ 
" Negro slavery happened, therefore negro 
slavery must have happened. 

" 'That which must be has the right to be/ 
" Negro slavery must have been, therefore negro 
slavery had the right to be. 

" Why did Colonel Ingersoll fight against negro 
slavery ? 

" ' That which happens must happen/ 
" It happened that Guiteau killed Garfield, there- 
fore the killing of Garfield must have happened. 
u ' That which must be has the right to be/ 
" The killing of Garfield must have been, there- 
fore it was right for him to be killed. 

" Did the United States government think so? 
"Axiom third. * 'To exercise a right yourself 
* "A Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field," page 477. 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST, 83 

which you deny to me is simply the act of a 
tyrant/ 

" Is the United States government a tyrant ? In 
killing Guiteau, did it not exercise a right which it 
denied to him ? What would syllogistic reason- 
ing do with the third axiom in this case? Is it 
possible that this champion of liberty and freedom 
should uphold the act of a tyrant ? 

a He boldly says, that * l society has the right 
to protect itself by imprisoning those who prey 
upon its interests/ and i it may have the right 
to destroy the life of one dangerous to the com- 
munity/ 

" How did it come by such rights? By the con- 
sent of all its citizens? Nay, my good friends, the 
right to take life is the right of might. 

"Why should Colonel Ingersoll love human law 
and hate God's law ? They both kill, they both 
oppress ; they are both formulated upon the one 
principle — power. Is he consistent ? Is he logi- 
cal, or is he like ' Frankenstein ' ? 

" Has he taken a peep into the mirror of his own 
soul, recoiled in horror, and taken vengeance 
against his Maker? 

" Did he include himself in this sentence ? f 
1 Most men are provincial, narrow, one sided, only 
partially developed/ Is the ' little clearing ' 

* " Letter to Dr. Field," page 44. 
f " Letter to Dr. Field," page 46. 



S4 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

around his brain just large enough to practice law 
in, and the remainder of the farm a forest of 
snakes and wild beasts? Do the poisonous serpents 
of hatred lie coiled in the brambles, and chant a 
chorus of hisses with the wild beasts of sophistry? 

M In all candor now, which causes his following, 
his logic or his rhetoric? 

M Axiom fourth.* % Neither in the interest of 
truth, nor for the benefit of man, is it necessary 
to assert what we do not know.' 

" How about axiom second ? Does he know it 
was right for the thumb-screw to be ? Does he 
know it was right for Guiteau to kill Garfield ? 
Does he not see that reason, wherever it sits 
* crowned monarch ' of his brain, will compel that 
man to place the mistakes, the errors, the world 
oi tears and regrets in which poor, frail humanity 
is engulfed on the side of right? Does he not 
see that he has done away with all wrong — that 
he has made a millennium on earth, or is he in 
accord with this philosopher? 

AYhatever is. is right, says Pope — 
So said a Sturdy thief ; 
But when his fate required a rope, 

He varied his belief. * 

* What ! will not now your rule hold good?" 

The executioner cried : 
u Good rules." he said. " are understood 

By being well applied." 

* M Letter to Dr. Field." page 46. 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 85 

" I would like to know if Colonel Ingersoll con- 
siders himself a civilized man. Does reason sit 
crowned monarch of his brain ? Are his passions 
his servants? Is he very certain that Jehovah is 
a myth ? Is he positive that axiom second is a 
truth ? Finally, and lastly fas the old-time 
preacher would say;, why is it that he hates the 
J of Moses with such malignant hatred? Why 
is it that he expresses regret at the poverty of 
language — at its paucity of objurgatory expres- 
sions, of its deficiency in vocabulary to furnish 
words to express his loathing of this ' monster' — 
this * Almighty Friend ' of Dr. Field ? 

" Would not the old Hindoo prayer, with one 
word added, be a suitable prayer for many of us ? 

u ' Have mercy, God, upon ' (me) ' the vicious ; 
thou hast already had mercy upon the just by 
making them just.' 

" Crimination and re-crimination in any discus- 
sion are always offensive to polite ears, but the 
doctrine of non-resistance, in the history of its evo- 
lution, and its struggle for existence, has never yet 
reached the highest pinnacle either of man's heart 
or head: so, to elucidate facts, strong language is 
at times indispensable. 

"Is not the fact of Colonel Ingersoll's denying 
God. positive evidence that he has laid aside his 
reason? Are not these words, taken from his reply 
to Mr. Black, negative evidence of the same thing? 



86 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST, 

" ' Never for an instant did I suppose that any 
respectable American citizen could be found will- 
ing at this day to defend the institution of slavery/ 

"Take axioms first and second in connection with 
this slavery question, and by syllogistic reason- 
ing see if Isaac Taylor missed it much when he 
said: 

" f The infatuations of the sensual and frivolous 
part of mankind are amazing; but the infatuations 
of the learned and sophistical are incomparably 
more so/ 

" If slavery existed by a law of necessity, and 
Colonel Ingersoll opposed it, and still denounces 
it as a crime, whether it exists in 4 world, star, 
heaven or hell; ' and by his own testimony it can 
be proved by the best and most accurate mode of 
reasoning known to man — by reasoning that is 
equivalent to a mathematical demonstration — that 
it had tiit right to be ; then, I say, Colonel Ingersoll 
ought to recant, and ask pardon of his fellow-men 
for practicing this unwarrantable imposition upon 
them for so main- years. 

"If he is an honest man, he will do it. 

u These are his own words: 'That which hap- 
pens must happen/ ' That which must be has 
the right to be/ These sentences are discon- 
nected from all others. They may be found 
in the November number of this Review [hold- 
ing up the book], — one on page 490, third and 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEI 87 

fourth lines from the bottom, and the other 
page 4; rd line from the bottom. 

'They admit of no interpretation. They mean 
just what they say. They are aphorisms which he 
has set up for the guidance of mankind. They 
include every event, every occurrence, every- inci- 
dent, every phenomenon, which have taken place 
since the world began ; and, what is worse, they 
make right of it all. They do away with all 
wrong. They abolish evil, and make God a liar. 
They stultify the human intellect, and make the 
thumb-screw one of the main-springs of equity. 
They place human slavery and human freedom in 
the scales of justice and make the beam poi 
They make Anubis a justified god in the Temple 
of Isis, and the debauchment of the chaste Paul- 
ina a virtue. They make wars, pestilence, fam- 
ine, widows and orphans, beggary, and i man's 
inhumanity to man/ ' glad tidings of great joy/ 

" They make a boomerang of th ds. 

" ' Slavery includes all other crimes. It is the 
joint product of the kidnapper, pirate, thief, mur- 
derer, and hypocrite. It degrades labor, and cor- 
rupts leisure. To lacerate the naked back, to sell 
wives, to steal babes, to breed bloodhounds, to 
debauch your own soul — this is slavery. This is 
what Jehovah u authorized in jucea." This is what 
Mr. Black believes in still/ * And, mirabile dictu, 

* " Reply to Mr. B!*ck/' ps^e : 



88 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

this is what Colonel Ingersoll says had a right 
to be. O ! Consistency, thou art indeed a jewel, 
but imbedded still in the head of a toad. 

" Suppose that Colonel Ingersoll should say, 
1 A straight line is not the shortest distance 
between two points — a crooked line or a curved 
one is shorter than a straight line ; ' and suppose 
he should then call to his assistance all the adjec- 
tives in the English language, and import all the 
slang phrases and objurgations of all the savage 
dialects on the globe, and hurl them against the 
originators of the mathematical sciences ; and 
then suppose that he should go over to the great 
fish market of London, and gather up all the 
billingsgate of that Alsatian den, and electroplate 
and gild it, and sugar-coat it, and try to force it 
down the throats of the American people — do 
you suppose they would swallow it? And do 
you suppose that his frantic appeals would dis- 
turb the equipoise of the great principles of 
mathematics ? 

"With modest diffidence we would suggest that 
he study the principles of logic more, and Roget's 
Thesaurus less. 

" Axiom fifth. * Everything is right that tends 
to the happiness of mankind, and everything is 
wrong that increases the sum of human misery/ * 

" The colonel answers questions readily that the 

* " Reply to Mr. Black," page 505. 



IXGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 89 

wisest and best have hesitated over. Pilate on 
one occasion asked a divine person, ' What is 
truth ? ' He received no answer, unless the rebuke 
of silence was an answer. 

"The above answer to the questions, ' What is 
right, and what is wrong?' would seem plausible, 
and would raise no objection in the mind of the 
average man ; neither would an affirmative answer 
to the question, 4 Is the Golden Rule perfect?' 
surprise the majority of people. 

" Remember that no assertion can be the whole 
truth and nothing but the truth, if a single fact in 
the whole universe impinges upon that assertion. 
Colonel Ingersoll himself says : ! There is a contin- 
ual effort in the mind of man to find the harmony 
that he knows must exist between all known 
facts.' * Such a picture as this has been seen in a 
civilized household in modern times. 

11 A woman of moderate mental endowments has 
been joined in the holy bonds of matrimony (one 
of Colonel Ingersoll's shrines of worship) to a man 
of a low order of intelligence, much lower than hers ; 
yet he is kind, humane, loving. To the extent of 
his ability, he provides for his family. He loves 
his wife and children, and his neighbors say of 
him, ' He is a clever fellow, but he has very little 
sense.' His journey through life is beset with 
difficulties which require brains to combat them. 
* il Divided Household of Faith." 



90 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

Being deficient in this respect, the difficulties sur- 
round and close in upon him. He becomes 
involved financially, and his children grow up a 
burden because of their mental insufficiency. 
His property is under mortgage ; but his friends 
are staunch, and wait patiently, because he is 
honest, because he is industrious, because he is 
good. His family is large. His half-witted chil- 
dren are stout and strong. They have good appe- 
tites. They work under their father's directions. 
They labor hard and willingly. They are good 
beasts of burden. But the result of all their toil, 
all their sweat, all their pains is insufficient to 
raise the mortgage, to cancel the debt, to pro- 
vide for their daily wants. The pinch of poverty 
is being felt in that family. The father's brow 
is clouded, and he is beginning to doubt the justice 
of God. The mother's hands are horny with toil, 
and her face haggard with anxiety. The children, 
with one exception, are unable to appreciate the 
situation. They are becoming dissatisfied and 
threaten to leave. They can see no good in 
unremitting and unremunerative labor. Despair 
is hovering over that household, and but for an 
episode of previous years would sit down with 
that family and stay. 

"When the mother was younger, and her animal 
spirits higher, she formed the acquaintance of a 
man whose intellect was keen, whose eye was 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 91 

bright, and whose vivacity of manner was capti- 
vating. In an evil moment a liaison was formed, 
and her exceptional child came into the world 
with a keen eye, a bright intellect, and a handsome 
face. 

*' ' Nature's unbounded son, he stands alone, 
His heart unbiased, and his mind his own. 
No sickly fruit of faint compliance he; 
He ! stamped in nature's mint with ecstasy ! 
He lives to build, not boast, a generous race ; 
No tenth transmitter of a foolish face/ 

"This boy takes in the situation. As mind has 
power over matter, he arranges with his (?) father 
and his brothers. Success crowns his efforts, and 
the household is blessed. His mothers face puts 
on a smile, and she is the only one in the wide 
world who knows why. 

" Was her faux pas a right action because good 
resulted from it ? 

" Here is another picture that may be seen con- 
stantly on the easel the world over. 

" A young woman of social standing, education, 
morality, and beauty enters the same holy bonds 
of wedlock with her equal in all respects. The 
marriage-bells peal with joy, and many friends 
smile and congratulate. This occasion is one of 
pride, and the whole world recognizes it as being 
legal and correct. The consequence of this fault- 
less step is extra-uterine conception. Suffering and 
death follow. 



92 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

"'The sum of human misery' is increased. 
What can reason say to axiom fifth? 

" ' Neither in the interest of truth, nor for the 
benefit of man, is it necessary to assert what we 
do not know/ * 

" Is Colonel Ingersoll working in the interest of 
truth? Is he working for the benefit of man? 
Does he assert only what he knows ? Are his 
conclusions logical deductions from his own 
axioms? Is this the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth? This, ' that which must 
be has the right to be.' 

11 Is it for the benefit of man that he says this : 
c If in this world there is a figure of perfect purity, 
it is a mother holding in her thrilled and happy 
arms her child ' ? f Does he assert only what he 
knows when he says this : ' An infinite God has 
no excuse for leaving his children in doubt and 
darkness '? £ In another place, he says: 'I have 
had no experience with gods/ 

" How can a man say what anybody or anything 
ought or ought not to do when he has had no ex- 
perience with the person, thing, or circumstance? 

u There is one sentence in Colonel Ingersoll's 
reply to Mr. Black, the drollery of which under 
all circumstances excites my risibles. I can't look 

* " Letter to Dr. Field/' page 46. 
\ " Reply to Mr. Black/' page 487. 
X " Letter to Dr. Field," page 40. 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 93 

at that sentence without laughter, and I can't 
think about it without a smile. It is this: 

" * Will Mr. Black have the kindness to state a 
few of his objections to the devil ? ' 

" Now, will Colonel Ingersoll have the kindness 
to state his opinion of the ' perfect purity' of 
the figure of a mother holding in her arms her 
illegitimate child ? 

" To pervert truth, to sophisticate nature, phi- 
losophy, or the understanding, to bend the mighty 
energies of the human intellect under a load of 
such ponderous magnitude as the doctrine of 
absolute atheism, entails a war in which the divine 
gift of speech is made the battering-ram of jus- 
tice, and the confusion of sophistical reasoning is 
employed to entrap innocence and prostitute 
virtue. 

" Colonel Ingersoll must have got a glimpse of 
his own when he said : * I admit that reason is a 
small and feeble flame, a flickering torch by stum- 
blers carried in the starless night.' * Or he may 
be under the influence of that chameleon sprite 
' Superstition,' as it leads in the van of human 
darkness, charming the eye with its cymophanous 
light, and forming a mirage of iridescent halos 
around the optics of human thought. 

11 If he will analyze his own sayings in the light of 
pure reason, if he will place his philosophy in the 

* u Reply to the Rev. Henry M. Field," page 475. 



94 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

scales of justice and test its specific gravity with 
that of the superstition he so mercilessly con- 
demns, he may find that they both tip the beam 
at zero; that opiniatry, not reason, is the * flicker- 
ing torch by stumblers carried in the starless 
night/ 

"When a system of philosophy is open to so 
many adverse criticisms ; when the glare of analysis 
casts a dark shade over statements purporting to 
be truth ; and when a code of ethics reveals error 
under the sharp scalpel of reason, may we not 
doubt the infallibility of a theology based upon 
denial, and whose only support is ridicule ? 

" It has been said that every man makes his own 
God. Colonel Ingersoll hates Jehovah because 
Jehovah tolerates slavery. 

" Can hatred alter a fact ? He hates the rheuma- 
tism, but can he convince the sufferers from that 
disease, that rheumatism is a myth because he 
hates it ? Rheumatism can be positively known 
to the sufferers only. If Colonel Ingersoll never 
had the rheumatism, how does he know such a 
disease exists ? Is he not obliged to believe it 
from the testimony of others ? 

" Perhaps he never had the toothache. Can 
he tell when another man has it ? Or, don't he 
believe in toothache because he has had no experi- 
ence with it? He may say that it stands to 
reason that a decayed tooth should ache, or that 



IXGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. g$ 

an inflamed joint should pain. Very well, how 
about the pains of parturition? He assuredly 
has had no experience in that line. 

" Is pregnancy a disease and parturition a result 
of violated law ? Are the throes of labor sanitary, 
pleasureful or in any way for the good of the 
woman ? Are they one of the consequences of a 
bad action? He says, ' Actions are good or bad 
according to their consequences/ If he says 
there is nothing bad in the pains of parturition, 
I will confront his testimony by the testimony of 
every mother in the land. Will he deny the 
existence of these pains because he has had no 
experience with them ? 

" In his reply to Dr. Field, he says, ' I have had 
no experience with gods ; there can be no evi- 
dence to my mind of the existence of such a being/ 
Now, as Colonel Ingersoll has had no experi- 
ence with the pains of child-birth, I would like to 
know if there can be any evidence to his mind of 
the existence of such pains, save the bare state- 
ment of the woman. 

u Exclude the ' dark continent of motive and de- 
sire,' and let the ' poor sovereign ' of ' that won- 
drous world with one inhabitant ' say whether there 
can be any more evidence to his mind of the exist- 
ence of these pains than there can be of the exist- 
ence of an infinite being. We have the bare state- 
ment of the woman for the pains, and nothing else. 



96 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

We have the statements of both men and women 
for the existence of God. The amount of positive 
evidence is much greater for the existence of God 
than for the existence of labor pains, and, in addi- 
tion to the positive, we have both negative and 
rationalistic evidence. 

" The strongest negative evidence for the exist- 
ence of God, is that no other, nor all other theories 
will account for the facts of the universe. 

" Admitting God will account for everything. 

" The rationalistic evidence for the existence of 
God is the stepping up to him by the ladder of the 
human mind. 

" Now, unless a man is lost in the ' treacherous 
sands and dangerous shores ' of this ' dark conti- 
nent of motive and desire/ he must see that it is 
no harder to believe in God than it is to believe in 
the rotundity of the earth, or the existence of 
China. 

" i I have had no experience with gods/ there- 
fore there is no God. 

" Is this syllogistic reasoning ? Is Colonel Inger- 
soll dishonest, or is he unwise ? He sets up a great 
deal of negative evidence to prove that he is not 
dishonest. 

" Error is ever the result of ignorance or dishon- 
esty. It never comes from any other source. 

" If he is honest, then the contest is only between 
ignorance and right. A good part of the better 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 97 

world says he is not right. According to his own 
definition of right and wrong, he is either wrong 
or inconsistent. I think he himself will agree that 
inconsistency cannot be right. Then if inconsist- 
ency cannot be right, the colonel must be wrong. 
Being wrong and being honest at the same time, 
he must admit that he is ignorant. Being igno- 
rant, he ought not to set himself up for a teacher. 
If he persists in teaching, then he must deny that 
he is wrong or he must deny that he is honest. 
Being honest, however, there is nothing left 
but to say he is wrong ; and being wrong, he is not 
fit to teach. Being unfit to teach, he ought to 
quit. This is a test of his honesty. Will he quit, 
or will he persist in his error, or will he endeavor 
to learn the truth ? 

" He says, * ' We should do all within our power 
to inform, to educate, and to benefit our fellow- 
men.' Is he doing it ? If so, by what means ? 
Are his axioms a measure of his power? Where 
does his strength lie? 

" Colonel Ingersoll has certainly missed his call- 
ing. He ought to have been a preacher. That 
profession would have enabled him to expound his 
sophistry, to promulgate his maxims and contra- 
dictions to his heart's content, without offense. 
And he could in pious humility have prayed with 
'Holy Willie:' 

* " Divided Household of Faith." 



98 INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

" f I bless and praise thy matchless might, 
Whan thousands thou hast left in night, 
That I am here afore thy sight 

For gifts and grace, 
A burnin' and a shinin' light 

To a* this place.' 

"He reasons after the manner of the revivalist. 
He occupies a place in the literary and philosophi- 
cal world similar to Jay Gould's position in the 
financial world. He is neither Jew nor Gentile. 
He is the special phenomenon of the nineteenth 
century. He has pitted himself single-handed 
against the statesman, the theologian and the 
jurist. In many cases he has been the victor. 
He seeks notoriety as Gould seeks money — it mat- 
ters little how he gets it. 

" He has studied human nature and learned its 
weaknesses. 

" While he holds up reason as the ultima Thule 
of all that is desirable, he tempers his words to the 
capacity of the average man — well knowing that 
the mote which blinds his own eye has a magni- 
fied image in the eyes of the great majority of his 
fellows. 

"He has learned the unfortunate fact, that it is 
not so much what a man says, but nearly all 
depends upon how he says it. 

" Reason, that mighty fetich of his idolatrous 
homage, is to him and his followers a flamboyant 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 99 

light, encircled with halos and spectral shadows — 
delusive in itself, and, siren-like, leading its vota- 
ries on to a willing death. 

" Mr. Ingersoll should stop and think. The 
people should stop and think, before they indorse 
him. 

" ' Prove all things ; hold fast that which is 
good/ but don't say, ' Everything is right that 
tends to the happiness of mankind, and every- 
thing is wrong that increases the sum of human 
misery.' And don't say, * That which must be has 
the right to be/ And don't say, * Ignorance and 
credulity sustain the relation of cause and effect.' 
And don't say, ' Acts are good or bad according 
to their consequences, and not according to the 
intentions of the actors.' And above all things, 
don't say, ' In the nature of things there can be no 
evidence of the existence of an infinite being,' " 

The train stopped and the lecturer got up to 
leave. He was billed to this town for his " cele- 
brated lecture," and a large concourse of people 
with a brass band had come to the depot to wel- 
come him. 

He had listened with great attention to the 
long discourse of the old teacher, and many times 
he had strongly felt the impulse to interrupt, but 
being a good listener as well as a good talker, he 
had sat with the others, mute and patient. 



IOO INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. 

His cynical eye beamed with a sardonic twinkle 
as he reached out his hand to bid the old gentle- 
man good-by, and he could not refrain from 
asking a few personal questions in regard to the 
old man's life history. 

u My good friend," he said, "I am going to 
leave you here, and while I have been entertained 
in a variety of ways with your companionship, I 
am curious to know if you are a man of family." 

" No," answered the old man. u I have never 
been married." 

" Have you made a fortune by your profession 
of teaching? " 

" I have never had time to think about making 
money." 

14 Without family, a man of your age must be 
somewhat alone in the world ? " 

14 A man cannot be very much alone in the 
world who has friends at home, and books wher- 
ever he goes." 

14 Can friends and books satisfy the cravings of 
the human heart ? Is ambition stayed by a taste 
of others' glory ? Is it nothing to be known — to 
be heralded on the wings of the wind — to come in 
contact with the great and the learned ? 

" You contend for principles, while the world 
neither understands nor appreciates you. The 
majority of men love to be cheated, and will pay 
handsomelv for the service. 



INGERSOLL AND THE DEIST. IOI 

14 Poverty is the Muses' patrimony. 

.turn and Mercury, the patrons of lean 
are both dry plane 

rid to this day is every scholar per 
Gross gold from them runs headlong to the be 

u Good-by." And, shaking the old man's hand. 
he stepped out of the car. 

"Do you know that man?" asked a clerical- 
looking gentleman on the opposite seat. 
"No." 
M That is Colonel Incrersoll." 



THE END. 



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